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COPVRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



A Key to the New Testament 



A KEY 

TO THE 

NEW TESTAMENT 

Or 

LETTERS TO TEACHERS CONCERNING 
THE INTERPRETATION OF THE 
NEW TESTAMENT 



By ALVAH S. HOBART 

Professor New Testament, Crozer Theological Seminary 
Author "Our Silent Partner," " Tillage of the Heart" 



THE GRIFFITH & ROWLAND PRESS 

PHILADELPHIA 
BOSTON CHICAGO ST. LOUIS 
TORONTO, CAN. 



Copyright 1911 by 
A. J. ROWLAND, Secretary 

Published February, 1911 



©GI.A283616 



A Word of Introduction 

The foundations of this book were letters 
used in a correspondence course with men 
who had not received theological training, 
but v were engaged in Christian teaching of 
some sort. 

So many words of commendation of 
these simple treatments of important sub- 
jects have come to the author that he has 
been led to brave the criticism which the 
publication of such works is sure to call 
forth, in the confident belief that the very 
simplicity of the letters will be the measure 
of their usefulness. 

They are only helps to study. They are 
necessarily condensed. It is intended that 
teachers will give them meditation as well 
as reading. 

A. S. H. 

Crozer Seminary, January, 1911. 



List of Chapters 



Chapter Page 

I. The Importance of Interpre- 
tation 9 

II. The Need for Interpretation. 18 

III. The Importance of Correct 

Interpretation 27 

IV. What is this Book which We 

Are to Interpret? 37 

V. Meaning of Words 45 

VI. The Study of the Grammar. . 60 

VII. Figurative Language 71 

VIII. Figurative Language — Con- 
tinued 81 

IX. Allegories, Fables, and Para- 
bles 91 

X. Symbols and Types 104 

7 



8 List of Chapters 

Chapter Page 

XL Arguments 116 

XII. Interpretation of Miracles. 123 

XIII. The Argument of Exhorta- 

tion 129 

XIV. Put Yourself in His Place. .134 
XV. Cross-questioning 140 

XVI. Interpretation of Books.... 150 

XVII. Interpretation and Biblical 

Theology 158 

XVIII. The Ultimate Truth 165 

XIX. Tests of the Work 169 



I 



The Importance of Interpretation 
r*0 the students " scattered abroad, 



greeting." In these few pages I shall 



A try to give you some brief hints about 
the studies which are necessary to make 
you safe and helpful interpreters of the 
New Testament to the congregations or 
classes of which you may be the teachers. 
No one can do more than guide you in your 
studies. Interpretation is like swimming 
in one thing, namely, you cannot learn it 
except by practice. Books and teachers 
make good helps; they cannot give you the 
power to do the work. That comes by its 
natural development, in response to your 
own endeavors. 

What is the science of Hermeneutics ? or, 
to give it a better name, the science of 
Interpretation? The word comes from the 
Greek word Hermeneuo, which means to 
explain, and to make plain. The Greeks 
used to have a myth that Hermes was the 




9 



io A Key to the New Testament 

messenger of the gods. They got his name 
from this word hermeneuo, because he 
was sent to make plain the will of the gods 
to men. He was the bringer of divine mes- 
sages and the interpreter of them. The in- 
terpreter of the Bible is one who makes the 
meaning plain. We use the word inter- 
preter also to mean the man who takes 
the ideas of a Frenchman, for example, and 
puts them into our language, so that we 
who do not know French can know what 
the French say. 

The latter use of the word is about the 
same as translator. But translate means 
less than interpret. A translator is one 
who puts the language of another nation- 
ality into our speech and leaves the results. 
His work is done. He is not concerned 
with the effect it has on those who read. 
Perhaps his work is printed, and remains 
as a standard for a long time. All he 
needs is a knowledge of the two languages. 

Interpretation is a work requiring more 
men and more variety of talent. One trans- 
lator may answer for a nation for many 
years, but every generation must have its 
interpreters, and every congregation its own 
interpreter. 



Importance of Interpretation 1 1 



There is also a moral and a spiritual de- 
mand in the work of interpreting which the 
work of translating does not require. The 
man who interprets comes face to face with 
people. He is not merely writing an imper- 
sonal book which will remain, but he is 
taking hold of men's hearts and minds to 
impress the truths of the Scripture for their 
good on them now " while it is called to- 
day." He cannot be satisfied to state the 
meaning of the text and leave it. He must 
bring heart and mind in all the variety of 
their powers to bear on his hearers that 
they may get the truth into their lives, and 
their lives into the way of the truth. Xo 
man does good interpretation who does not 
thus look for the results in men as the final 
aim of his interpretation. 

The man who merely puts into correct 
wording what he thinks is the meaning has 
not done his work well. He must get it 
into effective wording; get it not into the 
language in which his audience read and 
write, but into the language in which they 
think. To know some rules and follow 
them is only the hollow shell of interpre- 
tation. It is no more like the real interpre- 
tation than thumbing on the keys of a piano 



1 2 A Key to the New Testament 

is playing the piano. There may be correct 
notes, but no music. There may possibly be 
tunes, but no hearts moved. Interpretation 
takes the records of divinely guided life 
and instruction which the Scripture fur- 
nishes us and reanimates them, and brings 
them into touch with men to quicken re- 
ligious life in them. As an interpreter you 
will seek not simply to tell what you have 
learned, but to re-create in your hearers the 
good experiences which are recorded in the 
book. 

If you look at this matter of interpreta- 
tion in this light you will see that there is 
no more worthy or noble service to which 
you can give your talent than this. It is 
not all you have need to do if you are a 
preacher. As such, you are a shepherd of a 
flock, and you are to guide and inspire them 
to good conduct. You may often have 
occasion to speak on practical everyday 
topics. You may need to give your own 
conclusions about living questions. All this 
is in the nature of lectures. And the lec- 
turer gives his best. But it is human wis- 
dom when he has done. It may be wood, 
hay, or stubble. (See i Cor. 3: 12.) But 
when you interpret the word you bring 



Importance of I n terpretation 1 3 

not only the results of your own thinking, 
but the wisdom of God is in it. Such 
thoughts stay with men. They become a 
fountain of comfort and inspiration to them 
after the personality of the teacher has 
been forgotten. In my experience I have 
found that not only the more appreciative 
words have been spoken about my inter- 
pretative work, but the effects of such 
work, and the echoes of it in the prayer 
meeting have been more abundant. It is 
under such preaching that men and women 
grow to be strong Christians. It sometimes 
occurs that the men in the pew can read 
and think very well for themselves, and so 
in a measure dispense with this kind of 
work by the pastor. But in the great 
majority of cases the people will be small 
in religious stature if the pastor neglects 
this work. There will be hopeful children 
born into the kingdom, who will become liv- 
ing examples of arrested development be- 
cause of poor nutrition. 

You have already begun to see that this 
work is a many-sided work, and has much 
to attempt. For example, there are many 
words and phrases which have become 
strange to us and need explanation, as 



14 A Key to the New Testament 



Gates of hell, The kingdom of God, Our 
Passover is slain, Stand before God, Gifts 
of the Spirit, Pharisee, Sadducee, etc., etc. 

Then there are parables like those in the 
thirteenth of Matthew. Here we have a 
kind of teaching which was intentionally 
obscure to some. Jesus' own disciples need- 
ed to have the parables explained. The 
story of the Sower was a meaningless story 
until he gave to them in private the key to 
its thought. Then they saw that he was 
giving them advance information about their 
work and success as preachers. 

Then there are such passages as are in 
the fifteenth of Luke, which are not exactly 
parables, though the name is applied to 
them. But they are a different kind of 
parable. They are not concealed instruc- 
tions, but illustrative stories. The special 
lessons of such are to be made plain. 

In John 10: 1-5 we have pure allegory, 
interesting and instructive; but one that is 
almost universally misunderstood except by 
the trained interpreter. Even those tc 
whom it was spoken did not understand it 
until Jesus explained it. 

Miracles also are to be explained. Some 
of them are said to be acted parables. I 



Importance of Interpretation 1 5 



think a better name is dramatic actions. 
But whatever the name it is often a ques- 
tion whether they teach, and if so, what 
they were intended to teach. Examples of 
such are found in Luke 5:1-11 and John 
21:1-11. So, also, in the eighth of Mat- 
thew, a series of miracles is recorded 
which some say are acted parables or 
dramatic actions. Whether they are or not 
is a question, and if they are, what they 
teach is a question. 

There are types also in the Old Testa- 
ment which foreshadowed New Testament 
events. To explain these correctly is to 
enrich men's ideas of the far-reaching 
thoughts of God for men's welfare. (See 
Heb. 9.) 

Symbols too are found. What they teach 
needs study and explanation. Especially 
is this true in the book of Revelation. (See, 
for example, the following chapters, 5, 6, 
7, 8.) Apocalyptic visions are full of mys- 
tery even to the interpreters. You will 
find enough to humble any pride of intellect 
you may have when you come to examine 
that book of visions. 

But even these are not the greatest things 
to be interpreted. The events themselves 



1 6 A Key to the New Testament 

which are recorded were only a part of the 
events which took place. Why were those 
events which were put in the record put in, 
and why were others left out? What was 
the purpose which each writer had in mind 
that controlled his selection? We take it 
for granted that no book was written in a 
haphazard fashion. Some controlling idea 
was at the bottom as a sort of informing 
principle. We cannot well understand the 
book unless we find that purpose which con- 
trolled its creation. To find it and show it 
is a great service. 

But most important of all are the event 
in Jesus' life. The facts of that life are full 
of significance immeasurably above the sig 
nificance of other men's lives. The death 
of Jesus was as much above the death of 
Paul, and the resurrection of Jesus as much 
above the resurrection of Lazarus as Jesus 
was greater than Paul or Lazarus. To 
show this is important. 

You see by this brief glance at the task 
of the interpreter that it is a many-sided 
work. 

The work naturally divides itself into 
two departments — exegesis and homiletics 
Exegesis seeks to acquire the meaning o 



Importance of Interpretation 1 7 

the book. Study of its language and study 
of other history is a part. Study of Chris- 
tian experience is a most important part. 
So that he who undertakes to be an exegete 
will find he has a task which will give play 
to all his powers. He will have a work 
he need not to be ashamed of. 

The preacher seeks to impart what he 
has learned. This will be another great 
task. It will include all that commonly 
goes under the name of Homiletics and 
Preaching. 

This latter I do not attempt to write 
about. The former will be my theme in the 
following letters. 



B 



II 



The Need for Interpretation 

IT is quite likely that you may be asking 
why there need be any special science or 
special study for the interpretation of 
the Bible any more than for the interpre- 
tation of any other book. When we read 
other books we take the obvious meaning 
of the words and the statements, and we 
need no other key to the meaning. Is the 
Bible, which we are taught to think of as 
in some way a book God has given us, so 
hard and mysterious that we must have 
specially prepared men to make us under- 
stand it? 

It is hard to answer that question with a 
" yes " or a " no." If I were obliged to 
answer it with one or the other, I should 
say " no," for that would come nearer 
the truth than the other. But it would not 
be the correct answer. If there were any 
other book like the Bible, it would need 
as much skill to interpret it as the Bible 
18 



The Need for Interpretation 19 

does. If any other book had been clothed 
with so much mystery, and covered up with 
so much well-meaning but empty supersti- 
tion, it w T ould require as much study to dig 
away the debris and expose its beauty as it 
does to bring out the beauty of the Bible. 

Let me mention some of the things which 
have created the need for the science of 
Interpretation, or, to use the other word, 
the science of Hermeneutics. (I am not 
sure that it can properly be called a 
science.) 

1. The pre-Christian religions used to 
have some men or women w r ho were called 
" oracles, " or " sibyls/' or " prophets.'' 
These persons were supposed to speak for 
the gods. The Greeks had a place at Delphi 
where the vapors of a spring were said to 
put the sibyl into a sort of trance, and then 
she uttered the words of the god in an 
enigmatic way, which required some one to 
explain. Some time afterward the later 
Jewish writers and some of the early Chris- 
tian teachers mixed up this heathen idea 
with their ideas of prophecy in the Old 
and New Testaments. Philo among the 
Jews, and Origen among the Christians, 
were prominent in this sort of interpreta- 



2o A Key to the New Testament 



tion. (If you can consult the Encyclopedia 
Britannica or any large Bible dictionary, 
look under the articles Philo, Origen, Sibyl, 
Delphic oracle, and Apocalyptic literature.) 
Origen, for example, says, " The Scriptures 
were written by the Spirit of God, and have 
a meaning not only such as is apparent at 
first sight, but also another which most peo- 
ple do not see. For these words are the 
forms of certain mysteries and the images of 
divine things." This great man among the 
ancients set the example of teaching that a 
hidden meaning is in the Scripture. That 
idea has filtered down through all the cen- 
turies until now, affecting more or less 
many interpretations and many interpreters. 
Among these are the Swedenborgians. 
They say that the literal sense of Scrip- 
ture is the " lowest and outward form 
which divine truth puts on." " The Scrip- 
tures are not merely for men, but for 
angels." " The inhabitants of heaven per- 
ceive in them a higher meaning than their 
brethren of the earth do." " The Scrip- 
tures are symbolically written. " " All 
the narratives typify spiritual experience." x 
To them there is a " Science of Correspond- 

1 "Science of Correspondence," Madeley. 



The Need for Interpretation 21 



ence " which tells us what each narrative 
signifies. But they also say that lest men 
should be ignorant of the spiritual mean- 
ing Swedenborg was given repeated and 
manifold revelations from heaven, in which 
he was made to know the " interior " mean- 
ing. His books are the key to the Scrip- 
tures. For if the Scripture is thus a great 
riddle-book it must have an interpreter. 
These books of Swedenborg constitute for 
his followers the authorized interpreter of 
the Bible. 

2. Some men's writings are saturated 
with the idea that the world will grow 
better and better until it is fit for Christ's 
return. Others are equally saturated with 
the idea that Christ must come first or 
it will never be fit for his return. Some 
writers are frequently alluding to the 
condition of the wicked as " eternal tor- 
ment/' others speak of it as wholly " re- 
formatory,'' and still others as " destruction 
utter." These are but examples of what is 
found in the religious literature. It needs 
a trained mind to separate the correct from 
the incorrect interpretations. 

3. The Bible is not a book, but a collec- 
tion of books. It has sixty-six different 



22 A Key to the New Testament 

books, written during fifteen centuries. 
Portions of it have seen the rise and fall 
not only of nations, but of civilizations. It 
actually goes back into almost prehistoric 
times. The writers include kings on their 
thrones, priests in the temple, prophets in 
their office, and apostles. They wrote both 
in times of national prosperity and in their 
captivity; messages suited to faithful peo- 
ple, and to those who were recreant to all 
their obligations to God; when they needed 
rebuke and when they must have encour- 
agement. Its sweep of topics reaches from 
creation to the perfection of the New Jeru- 
salem. It has the deepest religious phi- 
losophy and the simplest of commandments. 
On account of this, if for no other reason, 
more care is necessary to interpret it cor- 
rectly than the ordinary book calls for. 

4. But there is more than language to be 
interpreted. The history needs interpreta- 
tion, and events also need it. If a man 
were seeking to learn from the history of 
the United States the true idea about the 
currency or of the tariff he would need to 
know more than the language of the laws 
or of the newspapers. He would need to 
interpret the meaning of events in their 



The Need for Interpretation 23 

relation to his subject. He would need to 
find out what are the subtle influences of 
" cheap money " or of " high tariff." So 
those who seek to interpret Scripture must 
seek to discover the influences which shaped 
the history, and point out the lessons of 
righteousness which are contained in it. 

For example, take the captivity of Israel. 
Has a man interpreted that when he has 
learned all the details of their life in Bab- 
ylon and fixed the dates and the names of 
the reigning kings? By no means. There 
remains for him to find what the captivity 
did for them religiously. It was not a 
mere incident in their history; it was a 
mighty factor in the formation of the na- 
tional character and the national religion. 
Then, if it was so mighty a factor in their 
national religion, was it accidental or pre- 
determined? If it was predetermined, has 
the purpose of God in that been fulfilled, 
or is there still some further purpose in the 
history of the Jews not yet manifest? 

Or take the prophecies about the Mes- 
siah. Was Christ foretold, and was his 
death foretold in Isa. 53? If it was pre- 
appointed, why was it so? Was the death 
necessary? If it was, why so? 



24 A Key to the New Testament 

Or these imprecatory Psalms 109, or 137: 
8, 9. Are these right words of good men 
put in for our example ? Do they show how 
we should feel toward any one who is 
against us? 

Coming into the New Testament, con- 
sider for example the martyrdom of 
Stephen. Is this anything more than the 
record of a frenzied mob, who killed him 
as a mob might kill a Chinaman in San 
Francisco? If not, what is the difference? 
and why was this story put in this book? 

The community of property spoken of in 
Acts, was that the pattern for all churches ? 
If it was, is it the pattern for States as well 
as churches? 

Look at the story of the crucifixion. Was 
it an unfortunate outburst of anger or a 
part in the predestined work of Jesus? 
And if he " must needs die," then why? 
What did it accomplish? And has that 
purpose been accomplished ? 

This book of Revelation, what is the 
meaning of this procession of symbolic 
visions which troop across the stage of the 
seer's mind, acting out history for him 
in this mysterious way? The players of 
Shakespeare never acted out history more 



The Need for Interpretation 25 

intelligently than these apocalyptic actors 
acted something. What was the some- 
thing? Was it the coming destruction of 
Jerusalem and the temple? or was it the 
far-off history of this whole dispensation? 

More important still is the fact that the 
Scriptures deal with religious experiences. 
Its records and its biographies are pre- 
served not as records or as biographies only, 
but as single pieces from which the mosaic 
of a godly life is to be made. This is a 
subtle subject. Its value does not lie on 
the surface. One must get down to the 
under strata. It is easy to read that David 
said, " The Lord is my shepherd/' But 
what made him think so? What will come 
of his thought? How can we have the 
same confidence? 

Look at Rom. 7 and see if the man 
who mourns over his sinful heart is Paul 
the Christian, or Saul the Pharisee. If 
we say the first, then is a Christian so 
powerless? If we say the second, then is 
a Pharisee so anxious to do right and can- 
not do it? 

I am sure you will see that with such 
things before us in the Scriptures there is 
need for preparation on the part of those 



26 A Key to the New Testament 



who would undertake to make them plain 
to others. If you have ever thought that it 
was a small or an easy part of the min- 
ister's work to interpret the books, you will 
not think so longer. 

It is because of such things that men have 
thought there is need for study of Inter- 
pretation. Professor Agassiz once said 
that the " Creator had revealed just enough 
of the wonders of creation to awaken 
curiosity and lure us graciously on to 
further discoveries. " Something like this 
seems to be true about the Book. It has 
truth lying on the surface, just enough to 
lure us on to further discovery of its riches. 

Reviewing our thought, we see that there 
is a need for special study to fit men to 
interpret Scripture. This need grows out 
of the inherited idea that Scripture has a 
double meaning, coupled with the fact that 
our literature is full of the results of that 
double interpretation; the variety and scope 
of the Bible writings; the need for inter- 
pretation of history; and the need for in- 
terpretation of men's experience. All 
these unite to say that we need this kind 
of preparatory study. 



Ill 



The Importance of Correct 
Interpretation 

LL our religious life is determined 



by certain deep-down ideas of God. 



The force of gravity in its influence 
on the course of a bullet is not more certain 
than the influence of our ideas of God on 
the course of our life. We shoot the bullet 
into the air at a high elevation, and for a 
time it looks as if it would laugh at the 
force of gravity. But the force of powder 
gets weary, the force of gravity does not. 
In the end the victory of gravity is com- 
plete. Men say that they are not troubled 
about religious ideas, and they are inde- 
pendent of theology; but it is not true. It 
is in our nature to think of some over-ruling 
kingdom. The Christian man, of course, 
thinks God is supreme. But who is this 
God ? What is his character ? What is pleas- 
ing in his sight ? Every man has a latent an- 
swer to these questions. The Jew of Jesus' 
time acted unkindly toward the Samaritan 




27 



28 A Key to the New Testament 



and the Gentile, because he thought God 
was indifferent to them. For centuries he 
had been trained to that idea. The psalms 
he sung at his worship and the prophets 
which were read in his synagogues all rang 
with that idea. (See the following as illus- 
trations : Ps. 87; Ps. 2; Ps. 46:4-6; Ps. 
no; Ps. 137; Isa. 14:1, 2; 45: 14.) 

The same is true now. The more igno- 
rant Jew or Roman Catholic does not feel 
that he is as much bound to be honest with 
a Protestant Christian as he is to his fellow- 
Tew or his fellow-Catholic. And the rea- 
son is he does not think God is pleased 
with them. As men become better edu- 
cated they discard that error, and regard the 
moral obligation as the same toward every- 
body, because they think God is the same 
toward all. (See Matt. 5:43-48.) 

This idea that we take on the feeling and 
character that we ascribe to God is under 
the passage in 2 Cor. 3:18. We behold in 
the gospel the glorious character of God. 
and by that beholding are changed into the 
same image. So in 1 John 3 : 2. We are 
not so Christlike as we ought to be because 
we do not correctly see him. But when his 
character is more fully known so that we 



Correct Interpretation 29 



shall see it more clearly, then we shall be 
like him, " for we shall see him as he is." 

For this reason no part of our study or 
our teaching of the book is more vitally 
important than that which sets forth the 
true idea of God as it lies deep in the 
Scripture. Our idea of God, when it has 
been conformed to the Scripture idea, will 
be a constant fountain of influence to cor- 
rect erroneous ideas everywhere else and 
an inspiration to all sorts of noble endeavor. 

Our ideals of life are most important. 
We are coming to understand that every 
one is controlled in a subtle way by his 
ideals. The boy imitates his father, or his 
teacher, or some larger boy, or possibly 
some loafer he has seen. All educators 
are now careful about this matter of ideals. 
It is equally important with grown folk. 
But in the case of grown folk the better 
ideals must crowd out the poorer, while 
with children the place is empty and wait- 
ing for an occupant. If therefore we can 
get from the Xew Testament the winning 
and satisfying view of Jesus which it con- 
tains, and present it in an attractive way, 
it will furnish for ourselves and our con- 
gregation a complete ideal of life. Men 



30 A Key to the New Testament 



will not always follow it as they ought, 
but they will never lose sight of it. It 
is with morals as it is with music or paint- 
ing. The girl who has a musical gift thinks 
she is quite a mistress of her piano. But 
her wise parents take her to hear a real 
master, and at once she moves her ideal up. 
She can never forget what she heard. She 
may not equal it, but it will always dis- 
courage her self-conceit and lead her on to 
improvement. 

So, when by patient, prayerful study the 
interpreter has discovered for himself and 
presented to his congregation the beautiful 
life of Jesus, he starts a fountain whose 
waters will never cease to flow. Xo man 
who has seen the beauty of Jesus' life can 
forget it. Even when he goes far astray 
that memory will haunt him and rob his 
sinful life of a part of its pleasure, and 
always beckon to him to return. If you 
have lived in a community where good men 
have made that ideal of Jesus familiar, you 
know what constant uplifting influence it 
has on all the morals of the village. (See 
in this connection Phil. 2 : 5-8 ; Eph. 4 : 20- 
24 ; Eph. 5:2; 1 John 2:6; 2 Peter 3:1,2; 
Rom. 13 : 14; Col. 3 : 10.) 



Correct Interpretation 31 

It increases the joy of life. The joy of 
Christian service is dependent on the view 
of our privileges rather than our duties. 
One may be a faithful Christian and yet not 
be a happy one. He may, in his feelings, 
be a bondservant and not a son. Life may 
be a drudge rather than a delight. Fears 
may overshadow his heart and anxieties 
weigh him down. Unless there is some 
specific endeavor to prevent it, we are al- 
most sure to have a somber view of life. We 
are face to face with so many of our own 
shortcomings which give us sorrow ; we see 
so much evil about us ; though we do our 
best, there remains so much that we can- 
not do that by contrast it appears as if we 
had done nothing — all these things tend to 
give a sad tone to life. But if, without 
losing sight of duty, we can find in the 
book great truths which will take us up 
as it were into places where we see life 
from higher standpoints, minor troubles 
will be lost sight of in the larger outlook. 
The angel in the book of Revelation seems 
to have known this, for after John had 
looked on the battles of good with evil as 
they were dramatized Defore him in several 
chapters the angel said (chap. 21:9) 



32 A Key to the New Testament 



" Come hither, and I will show you the wife 
of the Lamb." Then he took him up into a 
" high mountain apart " and showed him in 
that symbolic vision of the New Jerusalem 
the glorious destiny of our humanity. 

So there are times when Christians 
need to be taken into the high mountain 
of truth away from the struggles of life, 
and be shown the things which are above 
and beyond weakness or sin. Blessed is the 
man who can do the angel's part among us. 

And there are such mountains. For ex- 
ample, there is a view of God's attitude 
toward us far better than the forgiving 
attitude. The governor of a State may 
pardon a criminal and not love him. The 
prison doors may open and he may go out 
free, and then be allowed to freeze to death 
on the prison steps. He is pardoned, not 
loved or cared for. The man who can 
show how God is better than that, who can 
make plain the difference between a pardon- 
ing God and a gracious God will open a 
blessed view to men. 

He who can find in 2 Cor. 4 a truth 
which will transform the threatening evils 
of life into ministering angels will awaken 
among his pupils songs in the night. 



Correct Interpretation 33 



The man who can catch in the smoke of 
our battle only a fleeting view of conquer- 
ing reenforcements will put courage into 
the soldiers of Christ (Matt. 6: 10). 

There is a view of things which made 
Paul say " I will glory in infirmities." He 
who finds that view will be a comfort to his 
fellows (2 Cor. 11:9). 

In Eph. 1 : 18 Paul prays that men may 
know " what is the hope of his calling 
and the glory of his inheritance." Those 
in whom this prayer is answered will have 
found a hidden treasure indeed. 

These are but samples of hidden truths 
which lie scattered through the New Testa- 
ment inviting our discovery. He who finds 
them will not only be saved himself, but 
will, like a good shepherd, " go in and out 
and find pasture " for his flock. 

It largely insures correct methods of 
Christian work. We all naturally seek to 
conform our method to our aim. If we 
have, for example, an idea of the kingdom 
of God as a great Rome-centered, world- 
wide organization to which is committed 
the duty of administering baptism and 
sacraments, through which the grace of sal- 
vation is to come, we shall do as the Jesuit 

G 



34 A Key to the New Testament 



missionaries among the Canadian Indians 
used to do — risk our lives to baptize chil- 
dren. If we think the kingdom is a loosely- 
organized lot of congregations of believers, 
we shall put our strength on the single 
church with little attempt to organize. If 
we think that the great business of the 
kingdom is to promote earthly, material 
comfort and financial equality, we shall 
make our endeavors in the line of social 
work and study, and the sixth of Acts will 
be a prominent chapter with us. If we 
think that the kingdom is not material 
mainly, but is a state of society in which 
men accept God as their Lord, and love as 
their ruling principle, we shall preach and 
teach thus. If we think that men are made 
Christian by education, we shall educate; 
if we think it must be by conversion, we 
shall be evangelistic. So also, if we think 
that future generations will see great in- 
crease in wickedness, when evil will grow 
in power until it crowds Christian life into 
the background ; when deception will be 
more abundant ; until the patience of God 
is exhausted— if, I say, this is our conclu- 
sion from the Scripture, we shall not lay 
broad and deep foundations for Christian 



Correct Interpretation 35 



civilization, but will build temporarily and 
try to " hold the fort " until Jesus comes to 
do something worth doing. If we think that 
preaching the gospel, which has thus far 
subdued nations to a measure of faith in 
Christ, is the appointed means of conquer- 
ing the world for Christ, and that as leaven 
imparts its own characteristics to what meal 
it comes in contact with, so the world life 
will gradually come into accord with Chris- 
tian teaching, then we shall seek to educate 
man and to touch the world in as many 
ways as we can, expecting to see the fruit of 
our labors. (See in connection with this, 
Matt. 28:18; Acts 6; Acts 14:23; 1 Cor. 
14:40; 1 Tim. 1:3, 4; 2:1-3; 3:1-13; 
Rom. 9-3I-33; Matt. 13:24-29.) 

I think I have written enough to show 
how important this matter of interpreta- 
tion is. I want to add a word about the evil 
of careless or erroneous interpretation. If 
the Bible is of enough value to justify us 
in taking it into the pulpit or the class and 
teaching from it, it is entitled to honest 
treatment. A minister who opens the Bible 
in the pulpit, or a teacher who assumes to 
teach it, makes an implied promise to pre- 
sent in his teaching what the passages teach. 



36 A Key to the New Testament 

To take a passage and then warp its teach- 
ing into what the writer never meant to say 
or to teach is to insult the writer, and to 
deceive those who do a man the honor to 
suppose that he is teaching what his pas- 
sage contains. If a political speaker should 
so use his authorities as to misrepresent 
what they say, he would be called arrantly 
dishonest. If he said he did not mean to 
be, men would reply that his business is to 
find out before he uses such authorities. 
It is not less dishonest because the writers 
of the New Testament are dead and cannot 
resent the insult. This kind of use for 
Scripture has first a demoralizing effect on 
the man who does it. He knows he is not 
honest in his use of the book. He brands 
himself as willing to do a dishonorable 
thing. And secondly, he either makes his 
intelligent hearers despise his interpretation, 
or despise a book which is so incapable of 
good interpretation. More infidels are 
made by incorrect interpretations at the 
hands of believers than are made by the 
arguments of unbelievers. It is legitimate 
to address men without texts. But it is 
dishonest and dishonorable to take a text 
and not try to present its teachings. 



IV 



What is this Book which We Are to 
Interpret ? 

WE call the Bible the " Inspired 
Book," and " The Word of God," 
or the " Sacred Volume." These 
names for the book raise the question, How 
does the inspiration of the book affect the 
interpretation of it? We find various an- 
swers to that question. Some say, " Why, 
certainly it affects our interpretation. Its 
inspiration makes it a unique book in every 
way. Of course it is to be interpreted in a 
unique manner." Others say, " Yes, it is 
unique in its contents, but not in its lan- 
guage or literary form. It is a revelation 
of things beyond our invention or dis- 
covery, but the fact that it attempts to be 
a revelation implies that it will be in a lan- 
guage like other books or it would be not a 
revelation, but a riddle." 

Now how are you and I, who are only 
common sort of folk, going to settle this 
question when the uncommonly wise ones 

37 



38 A Key to the New Testament 



do not agree about it? Some may be dis- 
posed to say, " Well, it is too much for us, 
we will not bother about it." Others may 
say, " We will take the man we like best 
and follow him." Well, there is a way dif- 
ferent from these. Some of us will tackle 
the problem ourselves. We will look at the 
facts as we find them and form our own 
judgment, and as fast as we get a judgment 
we will go according to it, and will hope 
to get more and more things settled as we 
go along. Let me now point out some of 
the facts which w 7 e all see for ourselves. 

First. Whether the book is inspired or 
not, it is a perfectly human book in its form. 
It may tell wondrous things about the New 
Jerusalem and about John's visions, but the 
language is not, on the face of it, dif- 
ferent from the language of all men when 
they talk about the same sort of things. 
Grant if you will that it brings God's 
thoughts, yet it is man's grammar. It may 
be God's wisdom, but it reasons with Paul's 
logic. And though its thoughts transcend 
our thoughts, its words do not get beyond 
our dictionary. The grammar and logic 
and rhetoric are all the same as the gram- 
mar and the logic and the rhetoric of 



What is this Book We Interpret ? 39 



Homer's " Iliad " or Bacon's philosophy. 
Any man who knows the common laws of 
language can know the language of the 
Bible. The singular nouns have singular 
verbs, the objective cases follow the same 
prepositions; and the same figures of 
speech and the same kind of arguments 
run all through it. I want to emphasize 
this because many will feel at the start 
some vague reverence toward " sacred 
rhetoric." This is not at all necessary. A 
metaphor is the same in the Bible as it is 
in Shakespeare. There is no more sacred- 
ness about a metaphor of the Bible than 
there is about the arithmetic of the Bible. 

And conversely, if you do not under- 
stand your own English literary language 
you cannot understand the language of the 
English Bible. My own observation is that 
many ministers are not w r ell versed in 
their own language, and so fail to un- 
derstand the Bible language. Study your 
own mother tongue outside of the Bible 
and it will help your understanding of the 
Bible. Rev. John Watson, the gifted au- 
thor of " The Bonny Briar Bush," said if 
he had his life to live over he would give 
more attention to the English language. 



40 A Key to the New Testament 

Secondly. This book is not only human, 
but it has about all the varieties of human 
writings. See the first five books of the 
collection. These are called the books of 
the law. They are Genesis, a short sketch 
of the beginnings of things; Exodus, a nar- 
rative of the going out from Egypt to 
Mount Sinai; Leviticus, a collection of 
rules for the Levites to observe in the serv- 
ices of the Jewish worship, almost all taken 
up with ceremonies, a book of ritual; 
Numbers, a story of wanderings in the 
wilderness until the Israelites came to the 
Jordan ready to cross into Canaan; Deut- 
eronomy, a second statement of the law and 
the ritual with modifications. 

After these we find them more secular in 
some respects, and in some more biograph- 
ical. They are Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Sam- 
uel, Kings, Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, 
Esther. In all the world's history men and 
women have been the central forces. So 
in this history these books have a semi- 
biographical character, and yet it is a 
sketch of the history through which Is- 
rael passed. You see when you read these 
books that they are narratives of events. 
They are not " sacred " narratives, but just 



What is this Book We Interpret ? 41 



plain narratives of some good men and 
more bad ones. They tell both sides of the 
story. They are " unvarnished tales," but 
they are not like newspaper tales. They are 
not muckrakers. Nor are they slanderers 
of mankind. They are not pessimistic wails 
over man's wickedness. But they are such 
writings as always give us a dislike of the 
wicked and a strong impulse toward the 
good. They are profitable for " instruction 
in righteousness." And that is a part of 
their purpose. 

Then here we find five books that are 
poetic books — Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ec- 
clesiastes, Solomon's Song. Now do not 
get frightened because you find them " po- 
etic," as if that made them fanciful or 
unworthy of confidence. Their poetic form 
does not militate against their religious 
character. God could prompt a man to 
write a poem if he chose, couldn't he? He 
could inspire a dramatic play if he chose. 
Would it discredit him if one of these 
books were found to be a dramatic com- 
position? It need not. Is not the Twenty- 
third Psalm a poetic composition? Cer- 
tainly. No one doubts it. In the New 
Testament it is said that Jesus and the 



42 A Key to the New Testament 

disciples sang a hymn. And in the visions 
of heaven they sang songs. So we will 
let these five poetic books have their name 
and not be troubled about it. Only when 
we come to interpret any of them we will 
interpret them by the rules which belong 
to that class of writings. 

After these we have five books called 
the " Major Prophets/' They are Isaiah, 
Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel. 
Isaiah is made up of a collection of single 
prophecies uttered at various times and oc- 
casions during a long period. Jeremiah is 
the same. Lamentations is a poetic lament 
of Jeremiah at the condition of things in 
Israel. Ezekiel is a record of visions which 
that prophet saw when he was in the cap- 
tivity. Daniel is part history of Daniel's 
work and influence in the captivity, and 
part a record of visions which he saw. 

After these we find twelve so-called 
" Minor Prophets." These are the proph- 
ecies of twelve different men scattered 
along through some centuries. Each one 
was addressed to some specific condition 
of the people, and conveyed God's message 
to those people at that time and for a 
specific purpose. And when we come to 



What is this Book We Interpret ? 43 



interpret them, of course, it will be neces- 
sary for us to get in touch with the cir- 
cumstances and spirit of the times in which 
they were uttered. Such is the character 
of the book as it stands. There is not a 
word in it which intimates that it was in- 
tended for some strange people and to be 
understood by some mysterious law of lan- 
guage. Those writers wrote for men, and 
they wrote in a way that the " wayfaring 
man though he be a fool need not err 
therein." 

These writings were collected before 
Christ's time. They constituted the Bible 
he used to read and which he said " testi- 
fied to him." If for no other reason, they 
would be of great value on that account. 

Now w r e come to the New Testament. 
Here we find at the first glance four nar- 
ratives concerning the words and work of 
Jesus. Reading them even in a rapid way 
we see that the first three are very much 
alike. They tell much of the story in lan- 
guage quite similar ; but each book has por- 
tions which the others do not have. For 
example, Matt. 3: 1-12; Mark 1:1-8; Luke 
3:1-18; Matt. 4:1; Mark 1:12; Luke 4: 
1 ; Matt. 8:16; Mark 1 : 32 ; Luke 4 : 40. 



44 A Key to the New Testament 

And again they all view Jesus as it were 
from the outside. On this account they are 
called the " synoptic Gospels." That is, 
they take one viewpoint. But the fourth 
book is very different from the other three. 
It has much more individuality, and the 
writer seemed to think more about the 
inner meaning of Jesus' teaching. 

But in none of these books do we find 
anything which suggests that they were to 
be read in some exceptional way. 

After these we find a historical book 
(Acts), which traces the growth of the 
gospel ideas and the growth of the church 
for a few years under the leadership of 
Peter at first, and then of Paul. This 
book intimates in I : I that its purpose is 
to tell what Jesus did through his apostles 
after his ascension. 

Then follow thirteen letters of Paul on 
special difficulties and doctrinal topics of 
living interest at that time. Not one of 
these letters sounds as if he expected that 
it was to be put in a Bible afterward. He 
probably would not have objected if he had 
known it. But they were letters primarily 
to those people and to us only in a secondary 
way and by inference. 



What is this Book We Interpret ? 45 



After these come some " General Let- 
ters/' by James and Peter and John and 
Jude. These too are directed to specific 
conditions, and can be interpreted only in 
view of those conditions. Then the " Letter 
to the Hebrews/' which is called Paul's, 
but his authorship is not certain. It is a 
discussion with some Hebrew people about 
the relation of the law to the Christian 
gospel. 

Finally comes the Revelation, which 
claims on its first page to be a revelation 
of things which must " shortly come to 
pass." It is a strange book. After seven 
letters to seven churches, it gives the record 
of visions which the author had seen. They 
were symbolic visions. If he had seen the 
things themselves, it would have been dif- 
ficult for us to interpret. How much more 
difficult when we see that they were only 
visions at the first! This book combines 
all the difficult elements of interpretation 
in one problem. 

Such then is the book as it appears to 
any intelligent reader of it. It has in it 
nearly every variety of human composi- 
tion. And we must be prepared to vary 
our mental operations from one thing to 



46 A Key to the New Testament 



another as we come to these various kinds 
of writing. But again I say we are to do 
just as we would with any other writing 
of the same literary class; just as we 
would if we found in the same book ser- 
mons by Beecher, a history of Abraham 
Lincoln, and some hymns by Bonar. The 
truths we get from these Bible writings 
may be better than those we should get 
from other writings, but the method of 
getting them is not different. 

Each book is of its own age, and the age 
is of the book. Its imagery and its concep- 
tions of God and of duty are a reflection of 
its times, and must be so understood. 

If you will accept this and keep it in re- 
membrance, it will give you calmness of 
mind and soundness of judgment. It will 
prevent you from looking at single texts 
as if they were mottoes. Carlyle some- 
where said that a certain kind of critic 
was like a fly sitting on the cornice of 
some splendid temple, who, squinting at his 
little circle of observation, saw nothing of 
the beauty of the building. This broad way 
of looking at Scripture, which I have out- 
lined, will deliver us from that fly kind of 
narrowness in our interpretation. 



v 



Meaning of Words 

YOU will smile at the simplicity of the 
suggestion that any special study of 
words is necessary. You may think 
that such should be taken for granted. But 
in this study the " little and the simple " 
words which are said to compose the Bible 
will need care. There are three things 
which conspire to make the meaning of 
words in the English Bible somewhat more 
elusive than the words of our common 
literature. 

The fact that our common Bible was 
translated in 1611, three hundred years ago 
in England, by some Episcopalian clergymen 
supported and directed by the king is one. 
Other translations had been made, which in 
some respects were more accurate than this. 
But this had the support of the government, 
and after a while became the almost uni- 
versally recognized book for the English- 
speaking world. Excellent as it is, it has its 

47 



48 A Key to the New Testament 



imperfections. It was made by men who 
were under orders not to change any eccle- 
siastical words. This gives to some such 
words a vagueness of meaning which must 
be cleared up. For example, the words 
bishop, elder, shepherd, pastor, church, 
Easter, deacon, baptism, ordain, lay hands, 
consecrate, sanctify, all have a meaning dif- 
ferent from their common use now. You 
will need to study the connections and see 
what meaning was, in the circumstances, 
the necessary one. Dictionaries and com- 
mentaries will help you much, but your own 
judgment will usually assure you of their 
meaning. 

Again, the English language has changed 
much in three centuries; and while the 
letters and the spelling of the Bible have 
been kept up to modern ways quite thor- 
oughly, the wording has not been altered. 
As a result, many words in the Bible are 
either wholly out of use elsewhere or are 
now used in a different sense. Of these, 
the following are examples: Num. 20:3, 
chode for chided; Dan. 3:21, hosen for 
stockings ; Ps. 4 : 2, leasing for lying ; 1 Cor. 
16:22, maranatha for the Lord cometh; 
Ps. 7: 16, pate for head; John 20: 16, rab- 



Meaning of Words 49 



boni for master; Luke 17:6, sycamyne for 
sycamore; Luke 14: 32, ambassage for mes- 
sage; Nahum 3: 19, bruit for report; Zech. 
1:19, fray for fight; Mark 7:11, corban 
for gift; Acts 21 : 15, carriage for baggage ; 
Rom. 1: 13, let for hinder; 1 Thess. 4: 15, 
prevent for go before; Rom. 11:2, wot 
for know; Luke 17: 9, trow for think; Gen. 
25 : 29, sod for boil. 

There are some words still remaining 
in the latest, the so-called Standard Bible, 
which are English, and are unfamiliar to 
American ears. In England, where the ver- 
sion was made and where the services of 
the church are more generally conducted 
with the Prayer Book, which has the same 
old English, there is little trouble; but in 
this country many words are still in need 
of explanation. You will find help first in 
the American Standard revision. But the 
best help in this matter is the version of 
the American Bible Union. 1 That is an 
American book and an independent trans- 
lation. You will find great help in these 
things from consulting both versions. 

1 Published by the American Baptist Publication Society, 
Philadelphia; also "The Modern Speech" by Richard Francis 
Weymouth, published by Baker & Taylor* New York, and the 
Twentieth Century New Testament. 

D 



50 A Key to the New Testament 

Some time in the distant future it may 
come to pass that the American people will 
have come to prominence enough in the 
world to have a Bible embodying their pecu- 
liar forms of speech, as the Hottentots and 
the Chinese do; but just now we must get 
on with a Testament borrowed from our 
Episcopalian English cousins. 

The frequent reference to customs and 
ceremonies of the Jewish people which are 
now entirely out of existence demands at- 
tention. For information about these refer- 
ence must be had to the Old Testament, 
and such explanations as can be gotten from 
the New Testament. I have gathered some 
of the more prominent ones and given you 
the references which in a swift way will 
help you to see the method. 

From Matthew: 

Angel. Fleb. 1:14; Matt. 4:11; 13 : 39 ; 

Mark 12 : 25. 
Baptize. A ceremony instituted by John as 

a confession of faith in Christ. The 

Greek word means to immerse and then 

emerse. 
Beelzebub. Matt. 12 : 25. 
Bottle. Josh. 9:4; Matt. 9:17; Luke 5 : 37. 



Meaning of Words 5 1 



Blasphemy. Words which were considered 
derogatory to the divine character. 

The Christ. Not Jesus when " the " pre- 
cedes it, but the looked-for Messiah, the 
appointed one. 

Disciple. It was the custom for teachers 
and philosophers to be accompanied by 
those who were willing to acknowledge 
themselves pupils of such teachers. 
These were called disciples — that is, 
pupils or learners. 

Elder. Originally a man of experience, 
but soon an official : Gen. 50 : 7 ; Exod. 
3:16; Matt. 21 : 23 ; 26 : 59. In the Chris- 
tian church: Acts 11:30; 15:4; 6:24; 
14:23; 1 Tim. 5: 17; James 5: 14. 

Fan. An instrument for separating chaff 
from wheat. 

Feast of the Passover. Exod. 12:1-28. 

Feast of Unleavened Bread. Exod. 12: 
1-28. 

Hell. A word used in our Common version 
to translate two very different words and 
ideas. One is " hades " ; the other 
"gehenna." Hades means the abode of 
all dead. It is about equivalent to 
grave." The other word means God's 
overwhelming punishment and overthrow 



52 A Key to the New Testament 



of wickedness. It is founded on the nar- 
rative found in 2 Kings 23 : 10, where 
Tosiah defiled the home of idolatry in 
" Ge Hinnom," which means the valley 
owned by Hinnom. The Standard Amer- 
ican version makes a distinction in trans- 
lation. In the Greek " Gehenna " is used 
only in the following : Matt. 5 : 22, 29, 
30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15, 33; Mark 9: 
43-47 ; Luke 12 : 5 ; James 3 : 6. 

Hosanna. A term of praise to God. 

Herodians. The party that yielded re- 
ligious scruples to please Herod. 

Leper. A man who. by reason of a loath- 
some disease, was regarded as obnoxious 
to God, and therefore shut out of temple 
and worship. 

Law. The term used to designate the first 
five books of the Bible and their com- 
mandments. 

Legion. Six thousand soldiers. 

Oven. r A brick or mud receptacle, which 
was heated by burning grass in it and 
then used to bake bread. Matt. 6 : 30, 

Priest. Exod., chap. 28, 29. 

Proselyte. A man not of the Hebrew race 
who adopted the Hebrew religion. 

Pharisee. Matt. 5:20; 9:14; 16:6; Luke 



Meaning of Words 53 



11:42-44; 7:30; 11:39; 16: 14; John 1: 
24; 7:32; 11:47; Acts 23: 1, 8. 

Preparation. The day before the Passover. 

Potters' field. The meaning and history 
unknown. 

Synagogue. Equivalent to " local church." 
Sadducee. Acts 23 : 7, 8. 
Shew-bread. Exod. 25:30; 1 Sam. 21:6; 
Heb. 9:2. 

Sign. Exod. 8 : 23 ; Judg. 6 : 17 ; Isa. 7:11; 

Luke 2:12; Exod. 31:13; Matt. 12 : 39 ; 

1 Cor. 1 : 22 ; 14: 22. 
Tormentors. Officers to torture prisoners 

to make them confess or to pay money. 
Talent. A large, but to us unknown, sum 

of money. 

Veil of the temple. Exod. 26: 31-33 ; Heb. 

6 : 19 ; 9 : 3-8. 
Wilderness. Mountain country — not neces- 
sarily uninhabited. 
Worship. Often used to mean the bow- 
ing down to men as a token of esteem, 
not the same as worship to God. 
The following are taken from the book 
of Hebrews. You will be able to under- 
stand them only by reading carefully the 
book of Leviticus and getting the tabernacle 
and its services well in mind : 



54 A Key to the New Testament 



Salvation, sanctify, throne of grace, high 
priest, tithes, Levitical priesthood, taber- 
nacle, second veil, ark, covenant, city of 
living God. Church of first born, mediator, 
without the camp. 

Then there is a special difficulty which 
belongs to the nature of the subject. Re- 
ligious life is a growing life. Not only 
does the individual grow in spiritual experi- 
ences so that he has later in life experi- 
ences which were unknown to him early in 
life, but the Christian life as a whole is in 
advance of religious life in the Old Testa- 
ment times. Abraham, Moses, and David 
had experiences very precious; but John 
and Paul had experience beyond them. 
When the writers of the Xew Testament 
sought to express their ideas they could 
only use words and phrases originally made 
to express ideas smaller than their ideas. 
So the words are made to do a larger duty 
than the Old Testament called for, and to 
convey ideas richer than they carried in the 
Old. This is not peculiar to the Bible. If 
a man wrote in the sixteenth century about 
the " liberties " of the English people, he 
meant much less by the word ' " liberty " 
than we now mean by it. " The rights of 



Meaning of Words 55 



men " signified a much smaller idea then. 
A little while ago when a man said " public 
franchise " he was understood to mean " a 
donation from the public of the right to 
rob the public/' Now he is understood to 
mean " a responsibility to serve the public/' 
New ideas concerning these things have 
swelled the meaning of the words. 

Among these religious words, for exam- 
ple, the word " atonement " (Lev. 16:10- 
16) meant the ceremonial act which was ap- 
pointed to symbolize the continued favor 
of God to Israel. It was ceremony only. 
It carried no idea of repentance or of God's 
appeased anger. But this word in Rom. 
5: 11 means the whole redemptive work of 
Jesus, by which God is shown to be just 
and the justifier of those who believe. 

" Forgiveness " meant, in the Old Testa- 
ment, generally the remission of the penalty 
for sin. In the Christian use it means the 
restoration of that fellowship which sin had 
interrupted. 

" Sanctify " meant to set aside to God's 
use. Now it means to be fitted for God's 
use and then set aside to it. 

" Grace " in the Old Testament meant 
God's willingness to give to us without price 



56 A Key to the New Testament 

what we asked for. In the new use it 
means the pouring out upon us unasked, and 
more abundantly than we know how to 
ask or think, of the riches of his gracious 
disposition. See Eph. i : 7 ; 2 : 7 ; 3 : 2 ; 4 : 7 ; 
Rom. 3:24; 5:7, 8. 

" Kingdom of heaven " meant the estab- 
lishment of earthly material prosperity; 
now it means the dominance of Christlike- 
ness carried out in all our relations to our 
fellow-men and toward God. 

I think from these examples you will 
see that the use of words is not confined 
to their dictionary meanings nor to their 
strictly ancient use, but that in the Xew 
Testament they are surcharged with the 
experiences of Christian men. See also 1 
Cor. 2: 7-16. These things are sufficient to 
indicate the lines of special inquiry you will 
need to make in study of Scripture words. 

But now outside of these special inquiries 
there is a great necessity to observe the 
meaning of words as used by each writer. 
This would be true in any book, for men 
have uses of their own for words. You will 
find these by carefully reading and observ- 
ing the shades of meaning which fit the 
place where a word is used. 



Meaning of Words 5 7 



Take the word righteousness for ex- 
ample. When Jesus uses it in Matt. 3: 15, 
" it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness," 
he means do all that is required of us to be 
right. In 5 : 20 it means our obedience 
to the requirements. But in Rom. 1:17 it 
means something entirely different. It has 
a legal flavor there — a certain something 
on account of which God, as Judge, will 
account us as pardoned. 

Or the word " judgment." It may mean, 
as in Matt. 10: 15, the day when God will 
judge the world; or it may mean the act 
of God in deciding whether we are guilty 
or not ; or it may mean the punishments 
God inflicts (Ps. 19:9). 

The word " faith " may mean the thing 
that is believed, as in Jude 3, " the faith 
once for all delivered to the saints " ; or it 
may be the attitude of heart toward God as 
he is made known to us. See its use in 
the eleventh of Hebrews. Compare it also 
with Paul's use in Romans. And then 
compare with John's word " believe," and 
see the difference. 

In this inquiry you will find your path 
quickest and surest by the question method. 
Ask what meaning will fit this sentence? 



58 A Key to the New Testament 



What other meanings are possible ? I think 
the exercise most fertile in insight to the 
thought of Scripture is the question exer- 
cise. Question and cross-question a pas- 
sage until it gives up its full meaning. 
Take, for example, the passage " Christ 
died for sinners/ 1 What does it mean to 
die for sinners? Was it for the good of 
sinners? or because of the badness of sin- 
ners? or in the place of sinners? How 
shall we answer? The word " for " has all 
these meanings. We must inquire what 
was Paul's general idea about this death of 
Christ. And we find that he generally con- 
ceived of it as a death in which Christ 
suffered vicariously. Until you have 
searched the entire field of possible mean- 
ing you will not be able to say which is the 
most suitable one. 

Or take the word " peace/'' in Rom. 5:1. 
Does that mean (1) we have an inward 
sense of tranquillity; or (2) that we have 
ceased to be at war with God : or (3) that 
the relations between us and God which 
sin had disturbed are now amicable? 

We see that (1) is not the meaning, for 
he is not discussing our inward feelings; 
(2) is not, for he is not discussing our at- 



Meaning of Words 59 



titude toward God; but (3) is the meaning, 
for he is setting forth what follows if God 
is satisfied to justify us. 

This will be sufficient to indicate a line 
of study always profitable and usually 
necessary. It will also have an excellent 
effect on your own use of language, for 
the man who can discriminate well in his 
choice of words has a wide margin of ad- 
vantage over the man who simply opens the 
floodgate of language. 



VI 



The Study of the Grammar 

(DO not know how well you know the 
English language. From what I see of 
students who come to Crozer Seminary 
from all sorts of schools, I am led to think 
that the study of language in the schools 
is very superficial, and that few men give 
it sufficient study to make them accurate in 
their expressions or analytical in their study 
of literature. Greater emphasis on the study 
of the English language is to be desired. 

If my observation is correct, and you are 
among the neglected and negligent ones, 
you will need to be patient in this letter. 
You cannot possibly be an accurate inter- 
preter without grammatical inquiry. The 
old-fashioned parsing book of perhaps un- 
savory reputation must come down from 
the attic of your memory — if indeed it ever 
got into your memory at all — and become 
your helper now. We have studied words, 
but now we must study sentences, for the 
60 



The Study of the Grammar 61 

sentences are larger units of construction 
than words. I shall not undertake to give 
you a letter on grammar, but I can sort 
out some of the leading things in gram- 
matical study, and show you where to 
apply your knowledge of grammar in the 
matter of interpretation. 

In reading a passage note carefully first 
what is the subject of the sentence, then 
the verb, and then the object. Drop out 
all other words and see what idea is left. 
That is the framework of the sentence. 
For example : Rom. 2 : 3 reads, when thus 
skeletonized, " Reckonest thou . . . that 
thou shalt escape?" Ver. 4, " Despisest 
thou God's goodness, . . and treasurest 
wrath." Ver. 13, " The doers of the law 
shall be justified ... in the day when God 
shall judge the secrets of men." Eph. 1 : 
4, " He chose us in him . . . that we should 
be holy." Ver. 9, " Making known the 
mystery of his will ... to sum up all things 
in Christ." Eph. 3 : 1, " I Paul (. . . to ver. 
14) bow my knees unto the Father that 
he would grant you . . . that ye may be 
strengthened ... to the end that ye may be 
strong." These skeletons may then be filled 
in with the modifying words and clauses. 



62 A Key to the New Testament 

Relative pronouns. After the subject, 
verb, and object have been located the modi- 
fying clauses are to be sought out, and their 
individual contribution to the meaning dis- 
covered. These clauses are introduced in 
various ways. One of the important ways 
is by pronouns. For example, in Gal. i : 3 
we read, " Grace be unto you . . . from 
God our Father and our Lord Jesus 
Christ/' and then Paul introduces the modi- 
fying clause, " Who gave himself for our 
sins." In those verses the pronoun " who " 
is one of the windows through which light 
shines out of the sentence, and through 
which we look into it. Again, in Eph. 2: 
8, " We have been saved through faith, 
and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of 
God." In this sentence we have the direct 
statement, and then the demonstrative pro- 
noun " that " introduces an additional 
thought. To what does " that " refer? 
Does he mean " that faith " or " that sal- 
vation by grace"? Which is this gift of 
God, the faith or the salvation by grace? 
One way makes a man powerless to be- 
lieve, as a dead fish is to swim; the other 
leaves him power to exercise faith if God 
is gracious enough to accept his faith as an 



The Study of the Grammar 63 



equivalent for works. So in many places 
the pronouns must be studied. 

Then there are modifying clauses intro- 
duced by participles. For example, in Eph. 
1:4, 5, " He chose us in him . . . having 
foreordained us to adoption as sons." This 
indicates that before he chose us in Christ 
he had already determined that it should be 
through Christ that he would bring us to 
sonship, and hence the next thing to do 
was to call us to Christ. 

Again, Eph. 4 : 25, " Wherefore . . . 
speak truth one with another/' is the ex- 
hortation; but he inserts the participle, 
"putting away falsehood." That shows 
that he meant one to come first to the de- 
cision not to be false in any particular, and 
then as a part of the result of such decision 
speak truth. 

Another kind of clause is introduced by 
conjunctions. For example, Matthew says 
Jesus did so and so " that it might be 
fulfilled that was written by the prophet, 
saying." Some would read it "so that 
the word of the prophet did come to pass." 
Others read it " to the intent that the words 
of the prophet should come to pass." One 
must look carefully into such cases to dis- 



64 A Key to the New Testament 

cover the truth as the writer saw it. Was 
it purpose or result? 

Therefore is illative almost always— that 
is, it shows that the sentence to w r hich it 
belongs is a conclusion from some other 
sentence. It is very generally followed by 
a sentence beginning with for. As illus- 
trations of this, turn to the following pas- 
sages: Rom. 2: 1, "Therefore thou art in- 
excusable . . . for/' etc. Rom. 2 : 26, 
" Therefore the uncircumcision will judge 
. . . for/' etc. Rom. 5 : 28, " Therefore we 
conclude . . . seeing/' etc. You will find it 
a very profitable exercise to go through a 
few chapters and discover these illative sen- 
tences. You will find that a therefore is 
like the outcropping of white stones on 
Vermont hillsides, a sign that good marble 
lies underneath. Suspect a good doctrinal 
quarry when you see such a sign. 

Because is another conjunction which has 
one meaning. It is causal. Whenever 
you find it look back to see what statement 
it gives the reason of. Examples are Rom. 
1 : 18, " Wrath is revealed . . . because/ 9 etc. 
Rom. 1 : 20. They are without excuse . . . 
because/' etc. Rom. 4: 14, " Faith is made 
void . . because the law works wrath." 



The Study of the Grammar 65 

This word occurs about four hundred times 
in the New Testament. The frequency of 
it is very suggestive. The writers of those 
books did not expect men to accept their 
dictum as authority. They appealed to 
men's common sense and reason every time 
they wrote the word. " Do this, or believe 
this, or rejoice in this, because there is good 
reason for it, and this is the reason/' seems 
to be implied in that word because. 

For, as a conjunction, has about the same 
meaning. It is used more than a thousand 
times in the New Testament, and it has the 
same suggestion of the reasonableness of 
the teaching. Make a study of the vari- 
ous uses of that word and you will be 
astonished at the argumentative character 
it gives to the chapter you read. 

But is always adversative. It brings 
something to the front which was not in- 
cluded in the former statement. Matt. 1 : 
I 9? " Joseph was minded to put her away, 
but " a new thought comes to him of a dif- 
ferent kind. The skies of his thought 
change. Matt. 3:13, "Jesus comes to be 
baptized, but" a new idea is brought out, 
quite different from the first. John said 
No. See also Matt. 4:4; Rom. 5:8, 15; 

E 



66 A Key to the New Testament 

6:17, 22; 7:6, 8, 23; 9:31, In Paul's 
writings these adversative words are very 
strong, and give a vividness to these writ- 
ings which makes them impressive. 

Also is another of the words with uni- 
form meaning. It carries the idea that 
there are two things in mind, and one of 
them is an added thing. Some fine ideas 
are discovered by attention to this word, 
and especially to its position in the sentence. 
But I am sorry to say that in our Common 
version the use of also in about half the 
cases is wrong, in that it has the wrong 
position in the sentence. It ought to pre- 
cede the word or sentence it modifies. 
(This is corrected in the Revised.) Look, 
for instance, at Matt. 2:8, " That I may 
come and worship him also/' means as it 
stands that " I may do something and besides 
that may worship him." But the thought is 
that, " That I, in addition to you, may come 
and worship him." It should be " I also 
may come and worship." This is one of the 
cases where the man who knows no Greek 
is at a disadvantage, for the Greek makes 
it plain. Matt. 13 : 23, " He that hears, and 
understands, and in addition bears fruit." 
Acts 24:26, " He hoped also that money 



The Study of the Grammar 67 



would be given him." As it stands it says 
that he hoped for something — it does not tell 
what — and in addition he hoped that money 
would be given him. The also should pre- 
cede its verb. The thought is that he post- 
poned, and he also hoped for money. In 
Rom. 11:21, " Take heed that he 'also 
spare not ' thee/' This is wrong, for the 
idea is that in addition to the natural 
branches you also will be unspared. But 
in the twenty-third verse the word is rightly 
placed, " They also as well others," etc. 

Another class of clauses are introduced by 
Prepositions. Some of these require and 
repay careful study. The more important 
ones are for, of, in, into, through. 

For, when it is used as a preposition (not 
as conjunction), joins the idea of one word 
to another word. For example, waited for 
the kingdom of God, baptism for the remis- 
sion of sins, I thank God for you all. This 
needs no explanation, except to notice that 
it is a preposition. 

0/. Your dictionary will give you sev- 
eral meanings, but they are all related to 
the idea in the word from. The Son of 
man is the son who comes from man. The 
Son of God is the son who comes from 



68 A Key to the New Testament 

God. Source is the dominant idea. Then 
as a secondary idea comes possession. 
The sword of Goliath. The family of 
David. Sometimes it means characterised 
by; as son of consolation, son of wicked- 
ness. But there are two very important uses 
which need to be observed, in such clauses 
as, the judgment of God, the faith of God, 
the love of God, the righteousness of God. 
When the act or feeling expressed in the 
clause is exercised by God it is called a 
" subjective clause." When the act or feel- 
ing expressed in the clause is exercised to- 
ward God it is called an " objective clause." 
For example, in Rom. 8 : 39, " Nothing shall 
separate me from the love of God." If 
Paul meant to say that nothing could stop 
his loving God it would be objective; but if 
he meant to say that nothing would stop 
God's loving him it would be subjective. 
The meaning is often difficult to deter- 
mine. One way to get light is to substitute 
the word to or toward for of, and see if it 
will make sense. If it will it is objective. 
If you can substitute from it is subjective. 

In. The foundation idea of this is repre- 
sented by a ball with a dot in the center. 
The dot is in the ball. In most cases this 



The Study of the Grammar 69 

is simple, but there are places in the New 
Testament where this idea is the one which 
alone fits the meaning, and which, when 
once you see it, will give a new glory to 
your faith ever after. Consider the fol- 
lowing : Eph. 1 : 4, " Chosen us in him from 
the foundations of the world." That is, 
from the beginning God had planned to give 
us every spiritual blessing in Christ. " Even 
as (in accord with the same purpose) he 
chose us in him." We are not " chosen of 
God " apart from Christ, but when we are in 
him we are chosen. Eph. 1 : 6, " Which he 
freely bestowed on us in the Beloved." We 
are not recipients of his grace outside of 
Christ, but in him we are. See also Eph. 
2:10; 1 Cor. 1 : 30 ; 1 John 5 : 20 ; Rom. 
8:1; Col. 2:10; John 15:7; 2 Cor. 5 : 17. 

I think you will find in these passages, 
studied with your attention on the ins, an 
uplift to your faith you will never forget. 

Unto. Some men have objected to this 
word, but it stands in the Common version, 
and has a special value. It always carries 
the idea of motion toward and up to its 
object. Matt. 3:13, '' Jesus came from 
Galilee to the Jordan unto John to be bap- 
tized of him." " Baptism of repentance 



Jo A Key to the New Testament 

unto remission of sins." It was a move- 
ment toward and an ending in remission. 
Matt. 11:28, "Come unto me." John 4: 
36, " Gathered fruit unto life eternal." 
Acts 19: 3, " Unto what were ye baptized? " 
that is, what was the aim and outcome of 
your baptism? See Rom. 5:21; Heb. 6: 
1 1 ; 1 Thess. 4:7; Heb. 3 : 14 ; 12 : 4. 

Through may mean the agent or the 
means. Rom. 7 : 25, " I thank my God 
through Jesus Christ/' means that Jesus is 
the agent of God to deliver Paul. Rom. 6 : 
11, "Reckon yourselves ali t unto God 
through our Lord Jesus Christ." That is, 
Christ is God's agent in making us alive 
unto God. See also the following: Rom, 
5:9; Eph. 2: 18. If we get the viewpoint 
of these passages we are like Jacob as he 
looked up in wonder in his dream and saw 
angels of God ascending and descending on 
the ladder, but the " Lord stood above it " 
(Gen. 28:13). Through the various sec- 
ondary agencies Christ's own love shines. 
These texts all forbid us to veil his face 
in our teaching. 

But there are many passages where it only 
conveys the idea of means. See Rom. 3 : 
7; 3:24, 25; 4:20; 6:21; Gal. 2: 19. 



VII 



Figurative Language 

A COMMON error is the idea that be- 
cause figurative language is used the 
meaning is obscure and the state- 
ments unreliable. A little examination of 
the following will show you at once that 
this is not the case, " The Lord is my 
shepherd/' " Jehovah is my rock," " Pillars 
of the church," " O sword of Jehovah, how 
long wilt thou not be quiet." Ps. 102 : 6 ; 
Matt. 5:13; 6:3, 12, 22; 7:24-27) Luke 
13:32; 14:7-11; John 3:20, 21; 4:36-38; 
6:35; 1 1 : 25 ; Eph. 6 : 14-16 ; Gal. 5 : 22-26. 

Figurative language is used for two rea- 
sons. First, because in the poverty of lan- 
guage, there are not words sufficient to 
express all our thoughts, or we are too 
limited in our knowLdge of the language. 
Secondly, because the figure is more im- 
pressive than the plain statements. The 
underlying principle of figurative language 
is likeness or analogy of some kind. The 

7i 



7 2 A Key to the New Testament 



various figures of speech most common may- 
be said to rest upon likeness entirely. That 
likeness may be in form, or substance, or 
act, or function, or purpose ; and the key to 
understanding figures is a discovery of the 
point of likeness between the figure and the 
thing spoken. of. Of the various figures the 
following are the more important: 

Comparison. This compares things of 
the same class. Thus one might say that 
the love of David and Jonathan was like 
the love of women. 

Simile. This compares in some one or 
more particulars things of one sphere with 
things of another sphere. Thus we say a 
man shall be like the shadow of a rock in 
a weary land. The comfort men gH by 
trusting a good man is likened to the cool 
restful feeling when a man hides from the 
sun behind a rock. Our question is always, 
In what particular is a man like a rock? 

Metaphor. This is based upon likeness, 
but the likeness is not stated. The great 
and most useful figure of the Bible or of 
any language is the metaphor. I must be 
quite full in my treatment of this figure. 
The word means " carried over.'' The 
thought is carried over from one thing to 



Figurative Language 73 



another. When you think of it you see 
that our spiritual life and our mental life 
must all the time borrow words from our 
material life. (Will you turn to the fifth of 
Matthew and examine only the verses 3-9, 
and see how many words are thus borrowed. 
They are kingdom, inherit, hunger, thirst, 
filled, heart, see.) 

This is especially true when we speak 
about God. We borrow nearly all our 
words from those that belong to men. For 
example, the "arm of the Lord" (Ps. 89: 
19; 98:1; Isa. 40:10, 11; 51:5; S 2 -^)- 
The " eyes of the Lord " (Ps. 33 : 18; 11 : 4; 
66:7; Isa. 11:3; 1:15; 1 Peter 3:12). 
The Lord " looketh " (Job 28:34; Ps. 33: 
13). The Lord " heareth " (Ps. 17: 1 ; 34: 
15; 84:8; 116:2; Isa. 5:9; James 5:4). 
We also ascribe to God the feelings and 
motives which we are accustomed to ascribe 
to men. This often gives perplexity to 
those who think all biblical statements are 
literal. Thus God is said to " repent," 
and to " look to see," and to " judge." It 
would appear as if he needed to be in- 
formed about things, and as if he made mis- 
takes and needed to learn by experience. 
All such expressions must be taken as in a 



74 A Key to the New Testament 

sense metaphorical, used because we have 
no words except borrowed ones with which 
to speak about God. 

(If one examines the fifty-third, fifty- 
fourth, and fifty-fifth chapters of Isaiah he 
will find many illustrations.) 

The same is true about the future life. 
We cannot express our ideas of it except 
in words of this world. If you were to try 
and tell your idea of heaven, what would 
you say? The same would be true if you 
tried to tell what you think about the condi- 
tion of the wicked. This was as true of 
the writers of the Scripture as it is of you. 
And it was as true of Jesus when he talked 
as it is of you when you talk. If he had 
come with a set of words about heaven 
which w r ere not earthly words, men would 
not have understood him any more than a 
child can understand us when w 7 e talk in 
scientific terms about things they have not 
seen. A chemist knows what you mean 
when you say you want to get some " chlo- 
ride of sodium " or some " monoxide of 
hydrogen," but a little child and a man un- 
trained in the language of chemistry will 
not know that you want some common salt 
or a drink of pure water. 



Figurative Language 75 

Because of this the Scripture tells of 
heaven as a city with streets and walls and 
gates. It tells of hell as a place of fire and 
torments. But these statements are figura- 
tive. And the words for heaven are no 
more figurative than the words for hell. 
We must find out the meaning which under- 
lies the figures. 

The metaphor has its basis in likeness, 
but instead of saying things are alike, the 
metaphor speaks about one thing as if it 
were another. For example, " Ye are the 
salt of the earth/' and " if the salt hath 
lost its savor/' and " henceforth it is good 
for nothing." You see how the Saviour is 
talking about men in the words that be- 
long to salt. But he only thinks of things 
in which the salt and the men are alike. 
He does not think that men are soluble, or 
inexpensive, or white. But he has in mind 
the fact that good men keep the world from 
becoming morally corrupt. In that par- 
ticular they are like salt which keeps meat 
from becoming corrupt. He has in his mind 
an image of salt. You might almost say 
that he sees salt and talks about men. 

Suppose now that you never knew any- 
thing about salt. You could not get any 



76 A Key to the New Testament 



meaning from his words. If I were to 
write to you saying, " A minister is a fugle- 
man to his church/' probably you would 
not know whether I meant to say that he 
did them damage, or stirred them up, or 
was a heavy financial burden, or was a sort 
of expensive luxur)-. As a matter of fact, 
I said none of these. Will you look up 
that word fugleman and see what I did 
mean ? 

The point that I am trying to impress is 
that we must know what is the basis of the 
metaphor or we loose the idea it is intended 
to convey. Take a case from the sixteenth 
of Matthew, " The gates of hell shall not 
prevail against it." Now, what does he 
mean ? Your interpretation is dependent on 
what you think he had in mind when he 
said " hell " and " gates." Nine out of ten, 
I suppose, of common readers do not 
know what he did mean. They have a 
vague idea of " fire and brimstone " in con- 
nection with " hell." " Gates " is without 
much meaning. And so the real meaning, 
which is a very precious one, goes unseen. 
Out of these considerations grows the rule 
for understanding metaphors : 

Find out what zcas the image or object in 



Figurative Language 77 



the mind of the writer or speaker which 
gave shape to his words. 

Of course you will see that this is some- 
times a complex undertaking. It will neces- 
sitate a knowledge of the times and cus- 
toms. It will require some knowledge of 
their literary works and habits, and a knowl- 
edge of their religious views. With some 
passages it will be a long time before you 
will satisfy yourself about the meaning. 
But this rule will open at once for you a 
great number of the passages which other- 
wise would be obscure. And you will find 
in those which you can understand suf- 
ficient material for your preaching to keep 
you busy while you are learning the others. 

I want now to lead you in the study of 
some of the more important metaphors, 
and then I will ask you to study a list of 
others and determine for yourself what the 
basis of each one is. Please notice that I 
do not in this ask you to find the meaning 
of the passage, but only the basis of the 
metaphor. 

Let me take a difficult one to begin with — 
" The gates of hell." If we turn to the 
Revised version we find it reads "Gates 



78 A Key to the New Testament 



of Hades." Now, what does hades mean? 
Look in your dictionary, and you will find 
it means the abode of all departed spirits, 
or the grave. Now, what does " gates " 
mean in this connection? It may mean the 
literal gates which were supposed to shut 
up the abode of the departed, or it may 
mean the authorities that rule over the place 
hades. In the first case we have the idea 
that even the dead will not always remain 
in the grave if they are Christ's people. 
The gates cannot keep them in. In the 
second case it means the forces of death 
will never take away the life of the church. 
It will live on always. 

" Kingdom of heaven." What is the 
basis of the metaphor kingdom? Think of 
a kingdom and see what is the uppermost 
idea in your mind. Is it place? or is it the 
state of things when men honor the king? 
We say the kingdom of the Czar is shaken ; 
we mean the authority of that man over his 
subjects. In that same way we say the 
kingdom of heaven is the authority of 
heaven over men. " Thy kingdom come " 
means thy authority be recognized down 
here in earth as it is recognized up in 
heaven. 



Figurative Language 79 



" The whole armor of God." The apostle 
had a certain picture in mind as he de- 
scribed the Christian man. That picture 
was not of a soldier armed like ours, nor 
was it a heavy-armed Roman soldier. It 
was probably a man in the arena fighting 
for life. His armor was as given. The 
shoes were similar to baseball shoes, made 
so they would not slip on the floor. 

" Buried with Christ in baptism." The 
basis here is a man buried in water. 

" A little leaven leaveneth the whole 
lump." The basis is the peculiar action 
by which the leaven permeates (not cor- 
rupts) all around it and transforms it into 
its own character. 

" I am the light of the world." The basis 
is the sun, by its light giving cheer to all 
the earth. 

" The fruit of the Spirit." Here the pic- 
ture is a tree laden with the products of a 
season. 

" The sword of the Spirit." That with 
which a man defends himself and defeats 
the enemy. 

So through many changes and in many 
forms language pictures its ideas on the 
mind. 



So A Key to the New Testament 

For the sake of making this clear and 
indelible, will you study the following meta- 
phors and see the basis of the comparison 
in each: 

Rom. 6 : 4 ; 2 Cor. 4:2; Rom. 3:13; Rom. 
7:23-25; Gal. 3:27; 1 Cor. 15:23; Matt. 
25:41; Matt. 18:10; Matt. 26:26; Matt. 
10 : 38 ; Matt. 3:10; Matt. 3:12; Matt. 23 : 
33; 1 Cor. 3:9-15; 1 Cor. 10:24. In seek- 
ing the light on these, it will be well to con- 
sult commentaries if you can do so. 



VIII 



Figurative Language — Continued 

IN the preceding chapter I wrote about 
analogies of several kinds. In this one I 
want to carry the thought a little farther. 
There is a class of figures in the Bible 
which, while they are metaphors in char- 
acter, have some elements which make them 
a distinct kind of expression. For want of 
any other name I shall call them " great 
metaphors.'' They occur in passages which 
contain ideas more than usually beyond 
our power to express. A common name for 
them is " apocalyptic passages." The spe- 
cial characteristic of them is that they deal 
with ideas and events in the religious world 
which are so great or so much outside man's 
life that no activities of men or any com- 
mon activities of nature will answer as a 
basis of metaphor to express them. As 
an example, take the Eighteenth Psalm. 
Here is the conception of God's resistless 
power; of his anger at those who were 

81 



82 A Key to the New Testament 



doing harm to his people ; his immediate 
response to their cry; and the terror of 
his judgments. They are all too great for 
any common simile or metaphor. No plain 
description would be at all adequate to the 
occasion. No mere philosopher, or logician, 
or rhetorician could handle such concep- 
tions. It needed the poetic gift to write, 
and it needs something of the poetic to 
read it. Read the psalm, and you will see 
all the ideas are of the divine measure. And 
to whom will the writer liken him? " He 
taketh up the isles as a very little thing." 
The victorious march of Alexander or 
Caesar would belittle it. So he takes these 
great creations — earth and mountains, and 
clouds, and winds, and heavens — and pic- 
tures them as shaking with fear, and smo- 
king with fire, and raging with anger, and 
spitting fire with hail. That awing, man- 
subduing, upsetting of the natural course of 
things impresses one with the presence of 
a divine power moving resistlessly to de- 
liver him. 

Another one is found in Joel 2 : 28-32. 
Here there is in the mind of God a purpose 
to do what never had entered into the heart 
of man to conceive. And the way it is to be 



i 

Figurative Language 83 



brought about is as strange as the purpose 
is great. First of all, the doors of his 
blessings are to be swung wide open. Upon 
all classes of men in Israel he will pour out 
his Spirit; and not only on them, but upon 
all flesh. Now he comes to think of what 
will accompany this opening of doors. 
Ver. 30 : "I will show wonders in the 
heavens and in the earth. The sun shall be 
turned into darkness and the moon into 
blood." Picture in imagination, if you can, 
what a condition that describes. All that 
had been relied on to give light and warmth 
and life seems to have vanished. The most 
certain and well-established things become 
unreliable. What can that suggest? We 
get the interpretation in Acts 2. Peter said 
that the gift of the Spirit to all classes 
was the fulfilment of the first part of this 
prophecy. And the destruction of the 
whole Jewish economy was the fulfilment 
of the rest of it. If there was one thing the 
Jew felt sure of it was that Jerusalem was 
the favored city of God, that its future 
supremacy among the nations was as cer- 
tain to come as the sunrise. Its sacrifices 
would always be acceptably offered on the 
altars by the sons of Levi. Now we see 



84 A Key to the New Testament 



the national life of Israel forever ended; 
the temple forever closed; the sacrifices be- 
come useless ; the priesthood forgotten ; and 
Israel no more to God than any other nation 
which will believe on Christ. If you could 
think of a pious Jew having gone to sleep 
three years before Christ was crucified and 
then wakened in a few years after the de- 
struction of Jerusalem, what an utter be- 
wilderment he would have! All that he 
supposed to be permanent was gone, and in 
place of it a company of men preaching 
God's love to all men, worshiping in all 
places, and claiming earthly dominion in 
none. He would well say this is indeed 
what Joel said to us. 

This kind of metaphor was common in 
Jesus' time, as a reference to Jewish writ- 
ings will show. And so when he wanted to 
touch them effectively, he used such figures. 

See Matt. 24:29-31. What a picture 
that is ! It suggests the greatest upheavals 
of old and established ideas in religion. It 
suggests a great change in the relation of 
the world to Jesus. When he spoke he 
was about to be crucified, but then he would 
be here in glory coming from above. Then 
there would be a great proclamation by 



Figurative Language 



angels, which would gather from all parts 
of the world those whom he had chosen. 

Now I am quite sure some of you will 
say, You are taking out of this all the 
reality, making the largest things in the 
book figurative. But this is not the case. 
These things are stated as they are be- 
cause they are so large that nothing else 
will avail to express them. Figurative lan- 
guage does not belittle reality. Let us go 
back to simple metaphors and see how real- 
ity is expressed in them. The influence of 
Christians in the world is real enough, is 
it not? And yet Jesus called it salt. The 
reality was made the more evident by the 
figure. So in the story of the Prodigal Son ; 
it was a parable (which is only one kind of 
metaphor). All the drapery of that story 
may be changed, but the heart of it is that 
God loves sinners when they are away, and 
welcomes them back. That is the reality in 
the core of the story. The fictitious story 
or (lest you may misunderstand the word 
fictitious) the created story was used to 
make the truth real to the hearers. So these 
great metaphors have a real kernel of real 
truth in them. Jesus knew that his coming 
to do what he told the woman of Samaria 



86 A Key to the New Testament 



he would do (John 4) would upheave all 
existing ideas. And it has done it. How 
could he better tell it at that time than 
to use those figures in Matt. 24, in which 
the impression is that all things old are 
changed ? 

Look at 2 Thess. 2: 1-12. No one can 
picture this scene fully in his imagination. 
But there is a weird sort of air about 
it which awakens awe and reverence for 
God, and at the same time a confident feel- 
ing that a hand is at the helm of human 
affairs which is not to be palsied, and that 
final victory over Satan is to be won by 
revelation of truth. 

In 2 Peter 3 : 10, we have another. 
Imagine the scene, if you can! It is utterly 
unimaginable! But yet there is the per- 
fectly distinct feeling of an old order of 
things destroyed, and a new one far better 
inaugurated. Newness and purity are as 
evident as daylight. In those particulars 
the picture is accurate and instructive. 

But you may feel like saying, " Oh, you 
are reducing religion to feeling or impres- 
sion. If you do that it will not make 
any difference what we use to arouse the 
feelings with. Error will be as good as 



Figurative Language 87 

truth !" I should be glad if I could talk 
tvith you about that, for it is difficult to 
write on such things and not be misunder- 
stood. But I must beg you to let me try 
and express my thought briefly. Up in 
New England, where I was brought up, it 
was the general idea that a sermon which 
told you something new or proved some- 
thing old to be a little more certain was the 
only good sermon. To have heard a ser- 
mon and remembered its argument was to 
have profited by the day's worship. On 
that plan no interpretation of a passage 
is good which does not add to our assets 
of knowledge. But I appeal to you if 
knowledge is the only or chief asset of re- 
ligious life? Do not the devils know 
and tremble? Are the best theologians 
necessarily the holiest men? When you 
have learned a new idea are you always at 
once put in a frame of mind to carry it 
out ? No ! No ! We have more than intel- 
lect. Intellect is interwoven with all our 
activities, but they all have an element be- 
sides intellect. There is the feeling life. 
The emotions have their field. Unless this 
feeling life is moved by religious truth re- 
ligion will be a formality. 



88 A Key to the New Testament 



Scripture has much in it which appeals 
only to the feeling life. For example, the 
descriptions of the New Jerusalem in the 
book of Revelation. No one supposes that 
the walls of a great city are built as those 
were; or that gates are to be of one single 
pearl. But the splendid effect of all those 
descriptions of that city is to create an im- 
pression of the completeness of life in the 
final. It is an impression on the feelings that 
is sought. Or take the parable of the Good 
Samaritan. Can any one doubt that the 
Saviour's description of the wounded man's 
deep trouble was given to touch the feelings 
of his hearers ? It certainly was not his in- 
tention to give us a knowledge of the way 
they treated wounds in those days. It 
would move then, and it has ever since 
then moved to emulation of the Samaritan's 
kindness. It is not knowledge that is 
gained, but an impulse of tender kindness 
toward the needy, and dislike for that pre- 
tentious piety which sees no neighbor in 
the man who is not of our persuasion. 

God made us all with many strings on 
the harp of our life. Life's music is not 
complete if some of the deepest and best 
feelings are not used. Reverence, awe, the 



Figurative Language 89 

sense of holy places and things, are all a 
part of the moral forces and a part of the 
religious enjoyment of life. So I say in- 
terpretation may and must try to bring 
out of the Scripture what is in it. And 
if there is in some passage elements which 
do not yield answers to our questioning in- 
tellects, but do yield great comfort, or in- 
spiration, or restraint and fear of God, it is 
a fine interpreter who can bring such ele- 
ments into play, and a deficient one who 
does not. 

Let me recapitulate. When a writer had 
the largest conceptions of God he could 
not find any direct language to express 
them. And when he sought for metaphors 
he could not find in the common affairs of 
men or in the regular operations of nature 
anything which would express them. He 
therefore chose such forces of nature, and 
ascribed to them such actions as would 
create — not an intellectual conception of 
the matter — but the feelings of awe and 
reverence and confidence in God which he 
wanted them to have. And at the same 
time he would leave the great realities 
standing out like mountains on the plains, 
indistinct but certain. 



90 A Key to the New Testament 

I should say therefore that in these pas- 
sages we shall get what they are intended 
to give if we do not try to make them min- 
ister to our knowledge, but only to our feel- 
ings. Shut your eyes and try to imagine 
such things, and see how you would feel 
and what you would expect if in such times 
you knew God and trusted him. And those 
dominant feelings are what you are to cul- 
tivate in your religious life, and those 
dominant expectations what you may justly 
cherish for the future of the kingdom. 
You may profitably experiment with these 
suggestions on the following passages: 
Exod. 38: 18-23; Exod. 39: 17-20; Isa. 24: 
16-23; Isa. 35:1-10; Isa. 40:3-5; Micah 
4:1; Hab. 3; Zech. 14: 8-1 1. 



IX 



Allegories, Fables, and Parables 
"'HERE are more extended forms of 



expression which, like metaphors, are 



based upon resemblances. These are 
allegories, fables, and parables. They have 
so much in common that it is difficult to 
draw lines of clear separation between 
them, and to classify the passages well even 
when these lines have been drawn. The 
divisions which I have used in this chapter 
are somewhat different from those which 
I have found in the ordinary books on the 
subject. They are, however, the outcome 
of my own study and work as a teacher, 
and I have found them so satisfactory that 
I venture to give them to you. 

All these figures are alike in several par- 
ticulars. First, they are all stories. Sec- 
ondly, they are all fictitious, not real his- 
tory. Thirdly, they all teach by analogy. 
Fourthly, they all have a good purpose. But 
now the lines of distinction begin to appear. 




92 A Key to the New Testament 

The allegory proper may be likened to a 
symbolic picture which has its own beauty 
and completeness for the eyes which do not 
see the thing it is intended to symbolize. For 
example, the ceiling of the Congressional 
Library at Washington is ornamented by a 
series of symbolic pictures, each of which 
has beauty of its own, but also presents 
in symbol one of the various stages in the 
progress of the book-making art. So in 
literature, an allegory is a story complete 
and beautiful in itself; but it has a hidden 
meaning, which it is the duty and the pleas- 
ure of the intepreter to reveal. Examine 
in this connection Judg. 9:8-15; 2 Kings 
14:8, 9. 

The most perfect allegory in the English 
language is Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress." 
This is a story which children and grown 
people who do not see its religious sig- 
nificance read with delight. Those who 
understand it better know that the story 
of the Pilgrim was intended to show the 
religious life of the Christian man. 

In the allegory proper inanimate things 
are often personified, and by their alleged 
actions dramatize the idea to be conveyed. 
They are somewhat like characters acting 



Allegories, Fables, and Parables 93 

on the stage. There is not much of this sort 
of literature in the Scripture as I read it; 
but there are those, however, of whom I 
have spoken in a former chapter, who read 
the whole Bible as an allegory, and even 
regard the earthly life which it records as 
being an allegory of heaven. 

The best allegory of Scripture is found in 
Ps. 80:8-13, in which the psalmist tells the 
story of a vine brought out of Egypt, and 
traces its planting and its growth, and then 
its being broken down by the boar out of 
the wood and the wild beast of the field. 
In this story the psalmist was picturing 
in that beautiful symbolic way the experi- 
ence of the children of Israel. 

Another one is found in Isa. 5:1-7: 
" Now will I sing to my beloved a song 
of my beloved touching his vineyard. My 
well-beloved had a vineyard in a very fruit- 
ful hill; and he fenced it and gathered out 
the stones thereof, and planted it with the 
choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst 
of it, and also made a wine-press therein; 
and he looked that it should bring forth 
grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.'' 
And then this prophet went on to explain 
that underneath this allegorical story he 



94 A Key to the New Testament 

was presenting the dealings of God with 
the house of Israel. 

Another allegory is said to be in John 
10: 1-5. 

In interpreting these allegories we must 
remember that the literal statements them- 
selves are not to be taken as the mean- 
ing of the passage. For example, in John 
10 we must not suppose that the false shep- 
herds actually sought to kill the sheep, or 
that the pastor who has a salary is neces- 
sarily a hireling, and violates the teaching of 
the allegory. We must hold to the idea 
that the allegory always presents relations 
and truths in one sphere of life or thought 
which have their corresponding truths in 
another sphere of life or thought. Here the 
conduct of the men in attempting to climb 
up some other way instead of going through 
the door revealed their character and prac- 
tically confessed guilt. So the teachers of 
Israel revealed their character by their 
wrong way of approaching people. 

The fable is a special kind of allegory 
which differs from others in this, that the 
actors in the fable stories are usually ani- 
mals ; but human thoughts and feelings and 



Allegories, Fables, and Parables 95 

actions are attributed to them. Fables are 
used chiefly to teach moral precepts. Two 
fables are found by some writers in the 
Scripture, namely, in Judg. 9:8-15 and in 
2 Kings 14:8, 9 (and even these might as 
well be classified as allegories. I prefer to 
call them so rather than fables). 

Parables are distinct from other allegories 
in this, that the actors in the parables act 
their parts in their own natural way; and 
they are used to teach religious truths of a 
higher kind than the moral precepts of the 
fable. As parables have a large use in the 
New Testament, I want to give a little more 
time to their consideration. There are two 
kinds of parables : 

Parables of Illustration. These are those 
which are used simply to make certain 
truths plainer or more emphatic. Of this 
class are the parables commonly called the 
Mustard Seed, the Leaven, Dives and Laza- 
rus, and the Rich Fool. There is no argu- 
ment involved in these. 

Parables of Argument. These are by far 
the more numerous. I shall write about 
these later. In this chapter I want only 
to speak about the way in which we may 



96 A Key to the New Testament 

recognize them, and how to extract their 
precious essence. You must examine them 
to see what sort of analogy they contain, 
whether it is illustrative or argumentative. 

An argumentative parable is one in which 
the actors of the parable belong in some 
general way, or from some standpoints are 
viewed as belonging to the same class, so 
that what the actor in the parable does is in 
some degree an indication of what ought 
to be done by men. 

If we think of God and man as, in a cer- 
tain sense, in the same class — that is, they 
are both moral beings — then you can argue 
by analogy that what one does the other will 
do. But you cannot argue that because 
leaven influences all that comes in contact 
with it, therefore the Christian man will in- 
fluence his surroundings and tend to make 
them Christian, because leaven and men 
are not in the same class. You can illus- 
trate the influences of the Christian man by 
comparing with the influence of leaven. 
But the leaven does not even suggest the 
probability that a man will do one thing 
or another. There is no relation between 
the two which makes it probable that the 
man will do anything. 



Allegories, Fables, and Parables 97 



For example, consider the parable of the 
Mustard Seed. You see that the likeness is 
not in a vital thing, nor is there any vital 
likeness between a man and a mustard seed, 
and therefore it is not an argumentative 
parable. It illustrates only. The likeness 
lies in this : the value of the seed is not 
estimated by its size, or weight, or color, 
or taste, but by its nature and what it will 
produce when it has matured. So it is, 
said Jesus, with the kingdom of heaven. 
It is not to be estimated by the number 
of its disciples, nor the city where it began, 
nor the social, political, or financial stand- 
ing of its members, but by its nature and 
what it will do when it has matured its life. 
That is a good illustration. It sticks in 
our thought, but it is not an argument. 

The argumentative parable must use the 
likeness between God and man, or between 
one man and another man. 

In the parable of the Prodigal Son (so 
called) the likeness of the parable is be- 
tween the heavenly Father and the earthly 
father. They are both in the same class 
of beings. What one does is to be ex- 
pected in the life of the other. Jesus rea- 
sons from the earthly to the heavenly after 

G 



98 A Key to the New Testament 



this manner : The heavenly Father is better 
in all things than the earthly father. The 
earthly father longs for his wayward son, 
and welcomes his return with joy. There- 
fore the heavenly Father is glad when he 
sees the publicans and sinners — his way- 
ward children — turning to him. The argu- 
ment should give the name to the parable, 
and it should be the " Forgiving Father/' 
not the Wasteful Son. 

Sometimes this kind of examination re- 
sults in spoiling a sermon or in blotting out 
some pages of good books, but better under- 
standing of the meaning of the text will 
more than recompense you for such losses. 
The Bible will speak to you in a clearer 
voice, and bring a sweeter message. 

There is also a view of parables which I 
may not leave out of consideration. It is 
said by some that they are predictive. For 
example, the parable of the Mustard Seed 
is said to predict the growth of the king- 
dom, or the church, to such great propor- 
tions that it will become a shelter. The 
parable of the Tares is said to predict a 
long time of waiting, but at the end of the 
dispensation will come the judgment. So, 
also, the parables of the Pounds and of the 



Allegories, Fables, and Parables 99 



Talents predict the judgment. If you think 
these are predictive, you must inquire about 
the scope of the parable. Its vision must 
be large enough to take in the judgment; 
and anywhere between now and that event 
will be an appropriate time for the details 
of the parable to be carried out. 

To be frank with you, I must say that I 
do not think that the predictive element 
is very prominent, even if it exists at all in 
the parables. I do not think that Jesus sought 
to map out the future with any degree of 
clearness. He sought to impress on men 
with great force the great principles of his 
kingdom; and that if these were heeded, 
good results would follow; if they were not 
heeded, evil would follow and ripen. It is 
more in accord with my own reading of it 
to say that he set forth in that graphic way 
the ever-present and all-controlling charac- 
teristics of his kingdom which are in per- 
petual operation. The parable of the Tares 
sets forth the all-the-time truth that evil 
coexists with good, and we are to be care- 
ful in our fight with evil that we do not 
harm the good ; because our business is not 
punishment of the wicked, but encourage- 
ment of the good. Punishment of evil is 



ioo A Key to the New Testament 



God's business. " Vengeance is mine, saith 
the Lord, I will repay." The parable of the 
Dragnet (Matt. 13) tells us that all the time 
the religious machinery — if we may use the 
term without offense — all the evangelistic 
endeavors attract various classes, and gather 
some who are not truly religious. We are 
not, therefore, to stop fishing for men, 
When the time comes God knows which are 
genuine. He sorts for himself. We will 
cast the net where he commands. He will 
attend to the rest in his own time and way. 

There is, of course, always a prediction 
of good in any statement of truth or prin- 
ciple. In the same way there is prediction 
in planting a good tree. If it grows it will 
bear good fruit. But planting is not said to 
be predictive. So I would say that para- 
bles have that kind of prediction, though not 
themselves predictive. 

There is another view of parables which 
is sometimes given ; namely, that they were 
spoken not to instruct, but to conceal truth. 
Matt. 13:10-17 is quoted to sustain this 
view. There is this much truth in the say- 
ing: they were spoken to hide or partly con- 
ceal truth from some of Christ's hearers. 
But for those who had any heart prepara- 



Allegories, Fables, and Parables 101 



tion for the truth they were light-bearers. 
" Blessed/' said he, " are the ears that hear 
what ye hear." Parables did provoke 
thought, and suggested more than they re- 
vealed. 

I give you here a partial list of the pas- 
sages which are called parables by most 
writers. There are some who include more 
than others. It is not of importance. Some 
which I would call the illustrative parables 
are the following: 

The Mustard Seed (Matt. 13). Its les- 
son to the disciples may be briefly expressed 
in this: You are not to measure* your work 
by its present appearance. It is destined 
to be great and glorious. 

The Leaven (Matt. 13). The kingdom 
of God which you are to be connected with 
is not to win its victories by material forces, 
nor with great show; but as leaven, in 
silence and by influence. 

Dives and Lazarus. This is utilizing a 
common belief among the Jews to illus- 
trate the idea that this life " does not end 
all," but it predetermines all. 

The Laborers in the Vineyard (Matt. 
20). This illustrates the gracious character 
of God's dealings with us. In no sense are 



102 A Key to the New Testament 



we to " dicker " in religious things. God 
is just; but he is more than just, he is 
gracious. 

The Hid Treasure. The truth which you 
preach and the Christian life which you 
teach are of such worth that when the 
world sees them it will sell all to obtain 
them. 

The Pearl of Great Price. The Chris- 
tian truth and the Christian life are such 
that the God-fearing and truth-seeking, 
when they learn about them, will give all 
they have to possess them. 

Some which I call argumentative para- 
bles are as follows : 

The Sower (Matt. 13). Men in secular 
pursuits are not discouraged by some waste 
of seed — the harvest remunerates. So you 
in higher pursuits of a spiritual kind will 
have remuneration more than enough to 
compensate for your wasted preaching. 

The Pounds (Luke 19). Christians are 
estimated and given responsibilities accord- 
ing to their intelligence in service. 

The Talents (Matt. 25). Christians are 
estimated and rewarded on the basis of their 
faithfulness. 

The parables of Luke 15 are summed 



Allegories, Fables, and Parables 103 

up in the argument: "If men and women 
labor so much to find, and have such joy 
over finding, how much more the heavenly 
Father will labor for and rejoice over the 
return of sinners/' 

These are sufficient to show you how the 
division I have made works out. 

It is my experience that young people are 
more surely instructed in the great ideals 
of life by parables than by any other parts 
of Scripture. I regret that in the pulpit 
the exposition of them has fallen so much 
either into disuse, or gives birth to mere 
commonplaces. 



X 



Symbols and Types 

I WRITE in this chapter about things 
concerning which men differ very much. 
And I have hesitancy in writing because 
I am sure that what I have to say will be 
in some conflict with what some of you 
think to be the truth. But I hope that what 
I have to say will not be thrown out of 
the window of your mind as worthless until 
it has had fair consideration. 

Symbols are material things, not images, 
which are used to teach or to impress 
present and continuous religious truth. 
They differ from types in this, they do not 
have any foretelling element. They do not 
adumbrate. 

There are two classes of symbols. One 
class called natural s}^mbols, and the other 
arbitrary symbols. The natural symbol has 
something in itself which suggests the truth 
it is used to symbolize. The natural sug- 
gestions constitute the value. They reveal 
104 



Symbols and Types 105 



nothing, but they emphasize what is already 
known. For example, a white robe is a 
symbol of purity. From the white dresses 
which the Roman Catholic girls wear at 
their first communion back to the white 
angels at the tomb of Jesus, and forward 
to the four and twenty elders of the New 
Jerusalem clothed in white, around the great 
white throne, white is always suggestive of 
purity. 

The tabernacle was very largely symbolic 
(also typical). It was placed among the 
people in the midst of the camp, thus im- 
pressing the idea that Jehovah was among 
them. Its inner room was approached only 
by chosen men, who purified themselves 
before going in, thus impressing the idea 
that holiness is a condition of approach to 
Jehovah. It was costly and beautiful in 
its construction, thus suggesting the kingly 
character of God and the luxury — if we 
may so speak — of being in his service. In- 
side the holy place the golden candlestick 
told of God's enlightening influence; the 
shew-bread told of his care for the tem- 
poral wants of men; the veil of the temple 
constantly reminded men that the way of 
God was not yet fully open, " while as yet 



io6 A Key to the New Testament 



the tabernacle was standing." But the 
knowledge that behind the veil the ark of 
the covenant stood, and was approachable 
in an appointed way, speechlessly educed 
hope in men. Thus through all the hours 
of the day, and for long periods of years, 
this symbolic tabernacle preached its word- 
less sermons of righteousness. The texts 
were " Holiness becometh thy house," and 
" At thy right hand are pleasures forever- 
more." No sermons of men have ever 
preached more truly or more effectively 
the greatest of fundamental truths than 
preached these symbolic things of the taber- 
nacle. 

The other class, the arbitrary symbols, 
have little and perhaps no natural sym- 
bolism, but their lessons are attached to 
them by command or appointment. Of 
these, the rainbow is the first. It was made 
a symbol, and its lesson was attached to it 
by the word of God. The ceremonies on 
the day of Atonement were freighted with 
lessons which were arbitrarily attached to 
them. The symbols of baptism and the 
Lord's Supper are both natural and arbi- 
trary. Baptism symbolizes by its nature 
purification, but by its official interpretation 



Symbols and Types 107 



it carries the memory of the death of Jesus, 
and the pledge of a new life and loyalty to 
him. The Supper is naturally a symbol of 
companionship and equality, but by appoint- 
ment it is also a memorial and a prophecy. 
These Christian symbols will always be like 
two lighthouses unmoved by w T inds or cur- 
rents, to guide the church in its fundamental 
doctrines of salvation. 

The symbolism of numbers has some 
basis in common usage, but it is much over- 
worked by some interpreters. The greatest 
difficulty with it is that we have no key 
to the system. It is said that there is a sys- 
tem consistently followed through the Scrip- 
tures. For example, the number four is 
said to symbolize earthly completeness. 
Three symbolizes the heavenly department 
of things. Seven — the sum of four and three 
— symbolizes the totality of things, and is 
called the " perfect number." Twelve is 
said to symbolize the church of God, or the 
kingdom itself. One hundred is the symbol 
for all the saved. I give a list of some 
passages in which, as is claimed, these num- 
bers are found in their symbolic uses. I do 
not myself find any instruction in them, nor 
do I personally believe there is any instruc- 



108 A Key to the New Testament 

tion contained in them. It all appears to me 
like a sort of superstition of about the same 
grade as the farmer tradition that we must 
sow our peas and kill our pigs in the right 
time of the moon. If you care to read 
something about this matter you will find it 
in the works of Philo and the book of 
Enoch. 

The following are some of the passages 
usually quoted to substantiate the notion of 
the symbolism of numbers: 

Four, Gen. 2: 10; Josh. 21 : 18; Ezra 1 : 
5-17; Amos 1 : 3-13 ; Dan. 7: 2-7; Matt. 24: 
31 ; Acts 10: 11 ; Rev. 4:4-8; John 4: 35. 

Seven, Gen. 7 : 2 ; 8 : 10-12 ; 29 : 27 ; Exod. 
7:22; Josh. 6:4, 6, 8, 13; Matt. 15:34; 
Acts 6 : 3 ; 21 : 28 ; Rev. 1 : 4-12. 

Twelve is found in the twelve sons of 
Jacob, the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve 
apostles, the twelve foundations of the New 
Jerusalem, the twelve gates of the city, etc. 

Types are actions and institutes which 
express or accomplish in small degree spir- 
itual results which are to be accomplished 
later on in a much completer degree by the 
word of Christ. They have a real value at 
the time of their existence, but they point 



Symbols and Types 109 



forward in a predictive way to their own 
better fulfilment. For example, the sacri- 
fices accomplished in some degree the recon- 
ciliation of the sinner who offered them. 
But they also contained a prediction of 
reconciliation much more full. They did 
not predict events in history, but only re- 
sults in religious life. 

No man as a man was a type of Christ, 
but David or Moses might do official acts 
which were typical. The high priest him- 
self was not a type of Christ, but the high 
priest as an official did things in his office 
that were typical of Christ's high priestly 
work. I hope I have made this plain, for 
it is a great safeguard against fanciful in- 
terpretation of types. Men may be illustra- 
tions of what Christ was and did, but that 
is quite different from being types. 

Again, types are appointed by God, not 
invented by men. Any man can put things 
into symbolic uses, but no man can make a 
type. That needs foresight, and we have 
none of that. Our sight backward is more 
or less good, but we cannot see ahead. If 
anything is really a type, God made it so. 
And therefore we must ask carefully what 
he made typical. 



no A Key to the New Testament 

I think we are all safer when we keep 
close to shore in the matter of types, and do 
not use anything as such if it is not so used 
in the Scriptures. I do not mean to say- 
that there was no typical thing which is not 
mentioned in the New Testament. If the 
tabernacle was a type it was all typical, 
whether the details of it were mentioned 
or not; but inasmuch as the matter is so 
indeterminate, it is well not to venture far 
beyond the New Testament interpretation 
of it. 

Again, it seems pretty certain that the 
Jewish people themselves did not under- 
stand the ceremonies to be typical. Some 
of their more thoughtful ones may have 
seen that something better must come, be- 
cause the offerings could not fully satisfy 
their hearts ; but they had no idea that these 
types were intended to prophesy common 
things; and if they had such an idea they 
did not know what things were prophesied. 
What the types teach as types, not as sym- 
bols, the New Testament alone must tell us. 

One may then well ask, What is the im- 
portance of the study of them? If Christ 
is the fulfilment, why trouble ourselves 
about the shadow after the reality has 



Symbols and Types 1 1 1 

come? I think if you look it over care- 
fully you will find that types do actually 
affect men's minds very much. Both in 
their ideas of the atonement and their ideas 
of death and heaven people frame their con- 
ceptions on the so-called types. It is well, 
therefore, to have the matter well in hand 
to correct when necessary, and to utilize 
legitimately this typological kind of in- 
terpretation. 

Our great and almost only help on the 
meaning of types is to be found in the book 
of Hebrews. This book was written, as 
its contents show, to bridge the gulf which, 
to the pious Hebrews, seemed to exist be- 
tween the Christian's religion with scarcely 
any ceremonies and the Jews' religion which 
was full of ceremonies which God had 
given. They thought either that God was 
not in both or the interpretation was wrong. 
Hebrews shows that the heart of the new 
religion was in the Old, that the Old was all 
the time confessing its own incompleteness, 
and that Christianity was in embryo in the 
Old Testament. The author then points out 
how the promise contained in ordinances 
has been fulfilled by the work of Christ, 
and that the cessation of ceremonies is not 



ii2 A Key to the New Testament 

due to their original incompleteness, but to 
their present fulfilment; the bud has be- 
come a blossom. 

Let us turn now to examine a little some 
of the types which are unmistakably pointed 
out in the New Testament. We will take 
the sin offering. The ceremonial law pro- 
vided that at certain times the high priest 
should offer a goat as a sin offering for 
the people of Israel. But it was to be 
burnt, not on the altar of the tabernacle, but 
"without the camp" (Lev. 16; 23:26-32; 
Num. 29:7-11). In connection with the 
ceremony another goat was to be sent off 
into the wilderness. Now what did these 
things express? They were, when taken 
together, a ceremony which was understood 
to say that the break in the relations of men 
to God, which came by sins of weakness 
or ignorance, was restored, and their sin 
was pardoned. It did not at that time show 
Christ's death to any one. But when Christ 
had died, then the writer of Hebrews said 
that what was a mere hint of truth pre- 
sented in that sacrifice was more fully and 
permanently presented in the death of 
Christ. It was no new truth, but the old 



Symbols and Types 1 13 



one in fuller measure and in clearer light. 
Sacrifice and forgiveness, and the sacrifice 
first. 

Take the case of Melchizedek. He is 
called a type of Christ. Melchizedek was 
a man whose priesthood was not a matter 
of race. He was not priest because his 
father was, nor did he have a temple or a 
tabernacle; but he was a priest because he 
loved and honored God. So Jesus, not be- 
ing a son of Levi, was not a regular priest. 
But he had a priesthood of the same kind 
that Melchizedek had, based upon his own 
character and faith. In this his work was 
typified. Our approach to and communion 
with God are not due to Levi nor the law, 
but come through an outside source, which 
we might call our Melchizedek. 

So you can go through Hebrews and see 
that what we may call diluted truth was set 
forth in the sacrifices, but crystal truth 
(truth of the same kind) was presented in 
Jesus' sacrifice. The dilution of truth about 
heaven was in the land of Canaan; the 
truth in crystal was given in Jesus' teaching 
about the kingdom of heaven. 

But now you are asking, What do the 
types teach ? 

H 



ii4 A Key to the New Testament 



They teach that God was in that early 
history planning for the later history. If 
that is true,, then the Christian religion is 
not an evolution of men's philosophy nor 
their theology, but a matter of divine prep- 
aration. 

They show what truths God thought to be 
permanent and important — those which he 
thus so patiently and progressively taught 
through symbol and type. 

They help us to interpret Jesus' work. 

The\* are a framework for all our think- 
ing on the matter of our relations to God. 
Every great problem which a serious soul 
meets is dealt with in the ceremonies and 
in their fulfilment. For example, u How 
shall a man who is a sinner be just with 
God?" The ceremonial law told him at 
once, and Christ is only the larger and 
clearer " way." Who can come to God? 
The ceremony said, Those who are included 
in the high priest's offering. And Christ said, 
He gave himself a ransom for many. What 
is the great and first thing for a sinner to 
do? The types said, Make atonement with 
God. The New Testament says that in 
more unmistakable language. The truth is 
we cannot think much on these lines and 



Symbols and Types 1 15 



not find ourselves following the trail 
marked out by the types. 

For these reasons it is good to read and 
think about the book of Hebrews. 

I give you here as a guide to this book 
of Hebrews the bare outline of its argument 
on these matters : 

1. Chap. 1:1 to 2:18. Jesus is the 
ideally perfect Redeemer. 

(1) He is perfect in his person (1:1- 
14). Son of God. Heir of all things. 
Creator of all. Preserver of all. Re- 
deemer of all. Superior to angels. Des- 
tined king of all. 

(2) He is perfect in his mediatorial work 
(2: 5-18). As the head of the race. Per- 
fect in official qualification. Perfect by rea- 
son of his humanity. 

2. Chap. 3 : 1 ; 10 : 17. He perfectly ful- 
fils prophecy. As embodied in Moses' 
leadership. As found in the high priestly 
office. As seen in the priestly work of Mel- 
chizedek. 



XI 



Arguments 

WE come in this chapter to the matter 
of arguments in the Scripture. It 
is generally understood that Paul 
was a logician. It is not so generally no- 
ticed that Jesus was such. I think if you 
study Jesus' words with this in mind you 
will find that Jesus was quite as logical as 
Paul. 

Before you consider either of them very 
much it will be a helpful thing for you to 
" brush up " your logic a little. Lest your 
book of logic has been mislaid, let me help 
your memory a bit : " A syllogism is made 
up of three statements of such a character 
that if the first and second statements are 
true, the truth of the third appears to the 
reason as necessarily true." 

For example, if we say (i) The heavenly 
Father is never cruel, (2) a good earthly 
father is like the heavenly Father, (3) we 
cannot escape the conclusion that the good 
116 



Arguments 



117 



earthly father never is cruel. All true argu- 
ments are at heart similar to that. But in 
many of them one of the statements, or 
premises, is understood, but not expressed. 
We must therefore think down into them 
and find what statements are understood 
though not expressed, and then the argu- 
ment becomes clear. For example, in the 
sayings of Jesus (Matt. 6:30), "If God 
clothe the grass, will he not much more 
clothe you ? " What we ask is, " Why may 
we think that he will clothe us because he 
clothes the grass? How does the one 
imply the other?" It is because there is 
in thought, but unexpressed, this statement, 
(1) God cares more for his creature man 
than for grass. (2) Then follows the state- 
ment, He cares for the grass enough to 
clothe it. (3) Therefore he more surely 
will clothe man. 

John 1 : 49. Nathanael says, " Rabbi, 
thou art the Son of God." By what sort 
of argument does Nathanael come to that 
conclusion? It is this: (1) None but a 
God-sent man can know what another man 
is thinking. (2) This man knows what I 
was thinking under that fig tree. (3) 
Therefore he is a God-sent man. 



1 1 8 A Key to the New Testament 

John 3:2. " We know thou art a teacher 
come from God." The argument is (1) No 
man can do miracles without God, (2) 
This man does miracles. (3) Therefore 
he is from God. 

Matt. 5 : 5. " Blessed are the meek, for 
they shall inherit the earth." This implies 
(1) To inherit the land is blessed. (2) The 
meek will inherit it. (3) Therefore they 
are blessed. 

Matt. 5:9. (1) To be called the sons of 
God is blessed. (2) Peacemakers are called 
sons of God. (3) Therefore they are 
blessed. 

Matt. 7 : 9. What father will give his son 
a stone when he asks for bread? The an- 
swer expected is, " No father will do that." 
But how does that prove that God will 
hear our requests? Suppose a man does 
not do so, what has that to do with the case 
of prayer? The argument L this: (1) Man 
is made in God's image. (2) What good 
men do is the miniature of what God will 
do. (3) Therefore if a good father will 
heed his son's petition, God, of whom the 
good man is an image, will hear us. You 
see the major premise of that argument is 
the assumed and well-acknowledged idea 



Arguments 



that we are in God's image. If that were 
not true the argument would be empty. 
You will find that Jesus' arguments very 
frequently rest upon a " major premise" 
that is unexpressed, but is a generally ac- 
cepted religious idea. You will see the 
force of his argument when you express 
that premise. 

Paul's arguments are more extended than 
those of Jesus. They include whole chap- 
ters at times, but they are as convincing 
when they are seen. For example, Rom. i, 
2, 3 constitute a syllogism. It reads in this 
way: (i) No man who is sinful can be 
justified before God without some media- 
tion from God. (That is not stated, but 
implied as a commonly accepted truth.) (2) 
Neither the Gentiles (chap. 1) nor the Jews 
(chap. 2, 3) are without sin (3: 18). (3) 
Therefore none of them is justified with- 
out intervention from God (3: 19). Then 
he moves on (in 3 : 21-26) to say, But there 
is an intervention of grace. 

In discovering these arguments you will 
find it necessary to study carefully the 
whole situation. But there is no way to 
get the force of the teaching without this 
analytic study of the arguments. When you 



i. 20 A Key to the New Testament 

have found the bones of the argument you 
will have found that which will make you 
strong in your own convictions and strong in 
your power to teach the passage. There- 
fore I urge you to seek for it. Read such 
commentaries as help you in that kind of 
study. Your teaching will gain a virility 
which no other study can give it. 

As a help to this kind of study I will 
give you a sort of formula which has al- 
ways been of great service to me in such 
study. It is this: 

First, inquire diligently what is the par- 
ticular error or deficiency in the minds of 
those to whom an argument is addressed? 
You may assume that the writer had a pur- 
pose to correct something, and knew how 
to direct his thought toward it. For ex- 
ample, in Gal. 5 : 18-24, what is the specific 
aim of Paul? Some one says, "It is to 
show us that we must be led by the Spirit." 
But that does not fit what he said. An- 
other one says, " It is to show us that we 
cannot be good without the Spirit's help." 
But that does not fit the case. If you look 
back to ver. 16 you will see that he said, 
" Walk by the Spirit." Then men would 
ask, " How am I to know what is the 



Arguments 1 2 1 



Spirit's way?" and he is answering that 
query. So he says, in substance, " I will 
tell you how to know. The road that is 
marked by fornication, and strife, etc., is 
the road of the flesh. But the road that is 
marked by love, joy, and peace, that is the 
road for you to walk in. Against such 
there is no law." With this idea in mind 
every sentence seems to fit like the noiseless 
stones in Solomon's temple. 

Secondly. Inquire diligently what is the 
particular truth the writer seeks to convey 
in that part of his writing. By this I mean, 
not the main current of his thought, but the 
special contribution of each part to the main 
argument. An argument is made up of 
separate ideas. You will not know the mat- 
ter well unless you know it in detail. 

As illustrations, consider Rom. 5 : 12-14. 
First we ask, " What was the deficiency in 
the mind of the Romans at that point?" 
It was this : They did not see how any good 
could accrue to them through the death of 
Christ. They were not prepared to accept 
that idea. Paul is supplying that deficiency 
in their thinking. He therefore must be 
writing something which bears on that mat- 
ter of substitution or imputation of one 



122 A Key to the New Testament 



man's conduct for another man's. He says 
in substance, " Sin against law is not im- 
puted where there is no law, and therefore 
sin against law is not punished where there 
is no law. There was no law until Moses' 
time, therefore death was not the penalty 
for broken law before Moses' time." 

An Inquirer. If that is true, why did men 
die before Moses' time? 

Paul. They died because of Adam's 
transgression. He represented them in his 
sin, and they share with him in the penalty. 

Inquirer. How does that connect with 
your teaching about Christ? 

Paul. In this way: Adam was an illus- 
tration of the principle of representation. 
So that by the same principle by which men 
were condemned in Adam for things they 
did not personally do, men are credited in 
Christ with an obedience which was not per- 
sonally theirs. 

This sort of inquiry shows Paul's pur- 
pose. That idea of representativeness fits in 
and completes the argument he was making 
as a keystone fits and completes an arch. 

Good exercise in this kind of analysis is 
found in the following passages: Rom. 4: 
1-8; 5- i-5; 9-6-8; Gal. 5: 1-6. 



XII 



Interpretation of Miracles 

BEFORE considering the interpretation 
of miracles, it is necessary to consider 
what a miracle is. Without taking 
the time to consider other definitions, I will 
say what is the definition I have in mind 
and which is presupposed in this chapter. 
A miracle is a free act of God, wrought out 
of his usual order for the purpose of mani- 
festing his presence, or approval, or for 
teaching some truth about himself or his 
kingdom. 

It differs from a merely supernatural act 
in that it is not referable to fixed laws, but 
rests on the free will of God, and may 
never be repeated. 

The philosophy of miracles is the philos- 
ophy of God's freedom. The manner in 
which the miracle is wrought is mystery to 
us. We may not be able to say whether 
material laws are suspended or temporarily 
superseded. The will of God may not be 
123 



1 24 A Key to the New Testament 

hedged in by us. He alone decides about 
the ways and means. 

Concerning miracles, various views are 
held. Some think they were all works of 
mercy simply. Others say mercy was only 
an incidental feature. The record shows 
that some were and some were not works 
of mercy. 

Interpretation is concerned then only as 
they were revelations of Christ or of God. 
Some say they were acted parables, or, as I 
prefer to call them, dramatic actions. That is, 
the way in which the miracle was performed 
was intended to give expression to a truth 
beyond the mere declaration of his power to 
do it. The kind of things he did, and the 
kind he left undone ; the men he healed, and 
those he left unhealed; the means he used, 
and the working without means ; the times 
that he wrought, and the places that he 
wrought all have a dramatic language which 
must be studied. 

The question arises whether an action is 
dramatic by intention. For example, was 
Jesus dramatizing a great lesson when he 
went on the water to meet the disciples in 
the fourth watch? (Matt. 14:25.) The 
record of the fact is simple, but the ques- 



Interpretation of Miracles 1 25 

tion whether he was acting out in a sort 
of miniature the history of the coming ages 
is outside of any mere grammatical answer. 
If any one thinks he was showing his dis- 
ciples that there would be stress and storm 
for his church until in the last part of 
this dispensation, when he should come 
again ; and that then their victory would be 
immediate, the proof for that view is not in 
the form of the record, but must be sought 
elsewhere. One must ask (1) whether 
Jesus was accustomed to teach in that way, 
and if so, (2) did he give any specific inter- 
pretations of such actions in any case that 
would afford a key to the others ? (3) Does 
history since then confirm the interpreta- 
tion? (4) Does prophecy confirm it? 

See also the passages Matt. 4: 19; Luke 
5 : 1-11 ; John 21 : 1-13 ; Acts 3 : 1-20. 

In considering these it must be remem- 
bered that both words and actions may have 
plain meanings, and at the same time have, 
not different meanings nor double meanings, 
but deeper meanings. For example, the 
miracle of the five thousand fed suggests at 
once the supernatural power of Jesus and 
his sympathy with the hungry crowd. A 
man might see that and no more. But a 



126 A Key to the New Testament 



man with a deeper insight would say, " This 
powder and this sympathy are not exhausted 
by this act of supplying bread. It assures 
us that deeper wants will find supply in 
him." The logic of the case would be some- 
thing like this: This man has supernatural 
power and helpful sympathy. Such a man's 
power and sympathy are not exhausted in 
this act; they are perennial fountains. Such 
fountains will supply other needs as they 
arise. The greatest needs are for the sus- 
taining of our spiritual life. Hence we 
may by this miracle be assured that this man 
will give us the " bread for our souls. " So 
by an almost instinctive reasoning men 
would see that that miracle was a revelation 
of Jesus as the one who supplies the bread 
from heaven. This he himself taught the 
people the next day. 

The same force of reasoning and the same 
swiftness of reasoning, in the case of the 
first miracle, would lead men to see that 
Jesus supplied that marriage feast with 
greater abundance of wine and of better 
quality and with holier joy than any other 
source of supply had done. Such super- 
human excellence, when it was appealed to 
in the sphere of religion, could not fail to 



Interpretation of Miracles 127 

outdo all others in that sphere also. When 
we consider also that the water jars were 
themselves identified with the " purifying 
of the Jews/' the heart cannot escape the 
swift conclusion that Jesus intended to sug- 
gest that he would do for men better than 
the Jewish system had done. To use the 
phrase of the Scripture found in Isa. 60: 
17-22 : " For brass I will bring gold, and for 
iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, 
and for stones iron." 

It must also be considered that Jesus 
never laid aside his work and his thought as 
Saviour. Other men are unable to carry 
their religious work always. They seek 
relaxation and rest from responsibility in a 
sort of seclusion. But Jesus " could not be 
hid." A public man's acts are always 
watched as indications of his heart thoughts. 
Jesus could not eat with publicans and not 
have his act understood as a revelation of his 
feeling toward them; a declaration that the 
" wideness of his mercy w T as the w r ideness 
of the sea." It must also be considered that, 
in view of his clear understanding of the 
situation when he wrought miracles, he in- 
tended to do them at such times and in such 
manner that their deeper lessons, the swift 



128 A Key to the New Testament 

conclusions that thoughtful men would ar- 
rive at, would be the ones that he desired 
them to have. 

The lessons of miracles are not within 
the reach of dogmatic or definite statement. 
They are dramatic actions, but they suggest, 
rather than state. They teach by natural 
and necessary impressions rather than 
statements. The lessons appear to men with 
a clearness that is proportioned to their 
openness of heart and the cultivation of 
their religious imaginations and judgment. 



XIII 



The Argument of Exhortation 
'HE Methodist exhorter is generally re- 



garded as a man who, though zeal- 



ous and pious, is not qualified to ex- 
plain the Scriptures or teach the church. 
By his earnestness and courage of appeal 
he can bring men to a decision or help 
them to " rise up and walk " spiritually, 
when the colder blooded teacher will let his 
audience go home to think it over and, while 
they are thinking, the fire of impulse goes 
out. There is therefore a place of useful- 
ness for the mere exhorter. But I have in 
mind something different. 

Exhortation in the Scriptures is some- 
thing more than teasing men to be good. 
From the Apostle Paul's standpoint exhor- 
tation is the capstone of his letters. They 
are not finished until the " word of ex- 
hortation " has been spoken. With him ex- 
hortation is always the harvest of argument. 
To have vanquished the opposers gave him 
i 129 




130 A Key to the New Testament 



no satisfaction. He wanted them to accept 
the truth and rejoice in it. Exhortation 
is the art of pressing a logical conclusion 
upon the heart and the will. Logic makes 
plain and certain to the intellect. Exhorta- 
tion makes the man himself submissive to 
the decisions of his moral judgment. In 
this the Scriptures are different from books 
of theology. They do not describe a set 
of opinions which men held, but a life one 
is exhorted to live. Theological matters are 
discussed in Scriptures, but always with 
practical aim. 

That you may see this in the concrete 
turn to Rom. 12:1: "I beseech you there- 
fore by the mercies of God, that ye 
present your bodies living sacrifices, " etc. 
The word " therefore " gathers up all the 
argument which Paul has presented, and 
concentrates it on their will. But one may 
ask, What is the force of " by the mercies 
of God"? The thought may be expressed 
in this way, " I would move you by a 
memory of the mercies of God." But there 
still remains the question, Why do I ex- 
pect such a memory to move me? And 
upon study we see that there is at the bot- 
tom of the argument the ideas: 



The Argument of Exhortation 1 3 1 



1. Good men are naturally grateful for 
kindness received. 

2. Gratitude prompts some returns for 
mercies. 

3. Therefore we should make return to 
God for his mercies (see Ps. 116:12-14) 
by doing what he asks. 

That major premise is a universally 
recognized truth. It is rooted in our nature, 
and all the force of gratitude impels us to 
present our bodies, etc. 

Again in Rom. 14: 13, " Let us therefore 
no longer judge one another/' Why not? 
Because every knee shall bow to God. We 
are all hastening to that great judgment seat. 
Our opinions of men are of small account 
there. But we shall do well if no one is 
oppressed by sins into which we led him. 

Rom. 15:2, "Let each one please his 
neighbor for his good." Why? we ask, and 
this is the answer: 

1. Christ is the pattern for us all (un- 
expressed). 

2. Christ pleased not himself, but sought 
to save others. 

3. Therefore we should not make self- 
pleasing our aim. 

Rom. 15:30, "I beseech you, brethren, 



132 A Key to the New Testament 

by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love 
of the Spirit/' etc. Why? 

1. The example of our Lord and the in- 
fluence of his Spirit prompt us to kindness 
and help toward the saints in Jerusalem. 

2. But the errand is fraught with danger 
at the hands of those in Jerusalem who do 
not believe. 

3. We are taught that God hears prayer 
for help in our difficult undertakings. 

4. Therefore strive with me in your 
prayers. 

All the force of this exhortation would 
be gone if the sentence No. 3 were denied. 
If prayer is not answered this exhortation 
has no force. 

Similar lines of inquiry may be followed 
in 1 Cor. 3 : 18 ; 8 : 9-13 ; Gal. 5:1; Eph. 6 : 
1 ; Heb. 12:1; Heb. 12 : 12 ; 1 Peter 1M3; 
2: 1; 4: 1. 

If I may branch from interpretation a 
little, I will say that the analysis of this 
kind of argument is a most useful discipline. 
Many an exhortation has a good spirit and 
a good aim, but has no force because there 
was no argument back of it. You will do 
w r ell before you exhort to ask " Why should 
men do as I ask or urge them to do ? What 



The Argument of Exhortation 133 

reason have I to urge upon them which 
will lead them to do it?" To say, "Oh, 
please be a good man ! " wins nobody. To 
say something true and important first, and 
then say, " Therefore, be a good man " may 
have hope in it. 



XIV 



Put Yourself in His Place 

MANY years ago Charles Reade wrote 
a story dealing with the labor ques- 
tion in England. It was called 
" Put Yourself in His Place." It gave an 
impulse to sociological study. We cannot 
do much for men unless we understand 
them. And we cannot understand them un- 
less we can " put ourselves in their place." 
The Lord Jesus himself came to " put him- 
self in our place/' and it is written that he 
" learned obedience by the things which he 
suffered " when he was in our place. 

You are saying, " What has this to do 
with my interpretation? " It has this to do : 
We cannot understand with any fulness the 
sayings of men in the Bible unless we can 
in imagination " put ourselves in their 
place." If you think that you can, turn it 
around and ask whether a Jewish convert 
in Jesus' time if he could come here now 
would understand the ordinary language of 
*34 



Put Yourself in His Place 135 



the Christian world to-day? If he heard 
them talk about Atonement, and Eternal life, 
and the Church, and the Millennium, and 
the Eucharist, and the Bishop, and the Pope, 
and the Presbytery, Sanctification, Inspira- 
tion, Election, Reprobation, etc., would he 
not understand them, so far as they existed, 
to mean what they meant when he lived ? 

It is just as true that we must now seek 
his point of view to understand what he 
then said. This is work for our imagina- 
tion, trained for this duty. In some way 
or other we must get into touch with the 
occasion or we cannot get the best meaning 
of the words spoken. (I do not say you 
cannot get any meaning without it.) 

For example, you could learn of Jesus' 
power if you read that he healed a leper. 
But that is a very barren view of him com- 
pared with the view when you can realize 
what a condition the leper was in. Read 
about the leper in the following places: 
Lev. 13:45. 46; Num. 5:1-4; 12:10-15; 
2 Kings 7:3; Lev. 14:1-7. Do you see 
how depressed, how hopeless, how lone- 
some he was ? Every day brought him not 
joy and usefulness, but one more day of 
disgust with life. For him there were no 



136 A Key to the New Testament 



tender words of family, no caresses, no kind 
ministries, no kind words, no social inter- 
course. Oh, what a life! To such a one 
Jesus said, " I will, be thou clean/' and 
immediately his flesh was whole. Men gath- 
ered about him ; his family fell on his neck : 
the temple was opened for him; God had 
been gracious ! 

Or take this man Zaccheus. A publican ! 
Hated man ! When the ministers wanted to 
give a man a bad name they called him 
" as bad as a publican/' just as we now say 
" as wicked as a saloonkeeper." Yet Jesus, 
before a crowd, said, " Zaccheus, come 
down, I will go to dinner with you to-day." 

How can we understand the hatred of 
the Jews for Paul unless we can realize 
the generations of struggle among them- 
selves and with others to keep out of all 
their life the contamination of idolatry? 
and also know the cystallized ceremonialism 
which made a part of their social life at 
Jerusalem? Just as royalty enters into the 
warp and woof of society in London, and 
ecclesiasticism into all the life at Rome, so, 
and in a more bitter way, Jewish cere- 
monialism saturated the business and the 
social life at Jerusalem. To touch that was 



Put Yourself in His Place 137 



like touching a spider's web; it is reported 
at the center and thrills to the outer circle. 
The teaching of Jesus in the fourth of 
John, and the teaching of Paul in the second 
of Ephesians, was like a blow down through 
the web with ruthless hand. 

But what I am trying to impress on you 
is that you will need to read about the times 
and conditions. History must be your 
helper continually. 

Then you will profit by doing what Pro- 
fessor Tyndal used to tell his students to do : 
" Visualize the unvisible " ; that is, create 
the surroundings in imagination and be 
among them. Take the case of the paralytic 
let down through the roof. Imagine your- 
self a painter and what you would paint! 
What kind of a house? Who are these 
people in the house? Are they men or 
women? How would you paint that man 
at Jesus' right hand? That old man across 
the room, he is the ruler of the synagogue ; 
what sort of expression would you put on 
his face ? Now change your occupation and 
be a reporter. What did this man's friends 
say to him when they were getting him up 
on the house ? What did he think about it ? 
When he went home what did he do ? 



138 A Key to the New Testament 

Take the case of Judas when he used 
to steal from the poor-fund. How was that 
affecting his attitude toward Jesus? 

Try and enter into the situation of Jesus. 
He has endeavored to help men. He has 
preached nothing but right things. He has 
held out the promise of help and of forgive- 
ness ; but those men in the temple, whom he 
was brought up to revere, are not only re- 
fusing to heed his word, but are plotting to 
kill him. Think of a young man now, 
brought up under some aged minister, who 
finds out that his honored pastor is a covet- 
ous, revengeful man, whose religion is all 
sham, and who does not hesitate to plan 
murder to keep men from denouncing him 
in his own church. When you can realize 
that man's feelings then you may under- 
stand his anguish of heart when Jesus said, 
" Ye generation of vipers, how can ye es- 
cape the condemnation of hell?" 

Some of you may say, " Oh, we don't 
want imagination. We want facts." Yes, 
but some of the facts are reached only by 
the imagination. It is a fact that anger 
shows in a man's face. You may be sure 
that the scribes did not smile on Jesus. 
And it is a fact that the meaning of words 



Put Yourself in His Place 139 



is made potent by their circumstances. You 
do not get the facts about the meaning un- 
less you can somehow get into the atmos- 
phere of the occasion. So again I say, try 
by all means and great study to " put your- 
self in the place " where things were said, 
and thus get the subtle suggestions which 
otherwise will be unknown to you. 

(Good books to help you in this will be 
lives of Paul, by Farrar, or Conybeare and 
Howson, or Stalker, and lives of Jesus by 
Farrar, or Geikie, or Edersheim ; " History 
of New Testament Times," by Matthews. 
But, above all, read the New Testament and 
use your imagination in re-creating the 
scenes.) 



XV 



Cross-questioning 

I WANT to give you in this chapter some 
illustrations of the ideas I gave you in 
a former one about the question method. 
Let us take one of those passages which 
often give perplexity to readers. The 
eighth of Romans and the twenty-ninth 
verse : " Whom he did foreknow them he 
did predestinate/' etc. 

Many a man stumbles over this word 
" predestinate " on the very threshold of 
the passage, and never gets beyond the door. 
He says, " I don't want anything to do with 
predestination. I don't believe in it, and 
I won't believe in it." That is not your 
attitude, I am sure. Put this passage on the 
witness stand and cross-examine it. What 
is the purpose of Paul's argument in this 
part of the letter? 

Looking back to verse 18 he says, " The 
sufferings of this present time are not 
worthy to be comoared with the glory that 
140 



Cross-questioning 1 4 1 

is to be revealed in us." But (in ver. 23) 
he says, The glory is not yet revealed; on 
the contrary, even those of us who have 
the beginning of the Spirit groan as we 
wait for full redemption. We are looking 
forward to something yet to come. We live 
in hope, not in possession. We are not left 
to fight our way alone, but the Spirit helps 
us. You see that he is encouraging those 
who, while awaiting the glory that is to be 
revealed, are in danger of getting discour- 
aged because it is not already in sight. So 
he added to his words another element of 
encouragement, " We know that all things 
work together for good to those who love 
God." 

Yes, says Brother Doubtful, but how do 
we know it? 

We know it, Paul says, because, " Whom 
God foreknew he predestinated to be con- 
formed to the image of his Son." For that 
is the glory which is to be revealed. That 
is his great purpose, and it cannot fail unless 
God himself fails. 

Yes, says Brother Arminius, but I do not 
like that word " predestinate." Well, says 
the interpreter, I do not see what there is to 
dislike in it. God must have some purpose 



142 A Key to the New Testament 

concerning his own. It would be no com- 
fort to think that he left us to work our 
own salvation without any of his guidance 
or help, and thus make life a sort of wild, 
aimless junketing party. And if he has 
any aim, or purpose, what better one than 
that we should be conformed unto the image 
of his Son ? It seems to me that when God 
was planning for us we may think of him 
as asking, What shall we do for those who 
are believers in Jesus, and who confess 
him in the world? We might make them 
immortal in the world. We might give 
them wealth and dominion on earth. We 
might bring the world to their feet. But 
that is not enough to satisfy either our love 
or Christ's love for them. No, we will 
not stop until they are made into Christ's 
image, that he may be the firstborn among 
many brethren. 

But, says Brother Careful, will this idea 
bear inspection ? 

Let us compare it with other passages and 
see. Eph. 1 : 5 says, " Having predestinated 
us to adoption as sons through Jesus 
Christ." 2 Cor. 3 : 18 says, " Changed into 
his image from glory to glory." 1 John 
3 : 2 says, " When he shall appear we shall 



Cross-questioning 1 43 



be like him, for we shall see him as he is." 
Phil. 3:21 says, "He will change our vile 
body that it may be fashioned like unto his 
glorious body/' Then in 1 Cor. 15:51-57 
we learn that the final consummation of this 
eternal purpose will come at the " last 
trump." This is an underlying thought in 
Paul's writings. We have " struck a vein 
of ore." So this passage is really not a lion 
to tear us, but a messenger of comfort and 
courage. We are to work out our own sal- 
vation, but it is God working in us to com- 
plete his purpose (Phil. 2: 12). 

Let us try another passage. Rom. 5: 15. 
After reading this in various versions you 
will see that some read " let us have peace," 
and others " we have peace." Which is 
right? Looking back, we see that Paul has 
been stating that we are justified by faith. 
He has argued that fully and completely. 
He is not exhorting now. He is summing 
up the results of that justification. There- 
fore he says, " If we are thus justified we 
have peace with God. And not only so, but 
we have a glorying in the midst of tribula- 
tion. It is because tribulation works pa- 
tience, and patience works experience, and 
experience works hope. If tribulation then 



144 A Key to the New Testament 

brings more hope, we will rejoice in the 
midst of it." 

But, says Brother Fearful, suppose our 
hope should turn out to be empty. We are 
bearing a great deal of trouble for a mere 
bubble of hope. What you call hope will 
put us to shame. Is there not something 
more substantial ? 

Certainly, says Paul. We have already 
the beginnings of what we hope for. We 
have the " earnest " of our inheritance. 

Well, what is it? says Brother Timid. 

It is this ; we have now existent in our 
hearts the same kind of love that Christ has. 
God's kind of love is shed abroad in our 
hearts. That is the beginning of his image 
in us. We love men in some degree as 
he does ; we love God in some degree as he 
does; we obey God in some degree as he 
does ; the divine love has been shed abroad 
in our hearts ; it touches and blesses all our 
being. Therefore we will glory in afflic- 
tion. 

Take another. John 10: 1-6. If you ask 
Brother Hasty-Conclusion what this means, 
he tells you at once, It means that those who 
are trying to get into the kingdom of heaven 
on their merits, as for example the moral- 



Cross-questioning 145 



ists, are thieves and robbers. They are 
climbing up into the kingdom some other 
way. 

But, Brother Hasty, what makes you 
think that is the meaning? 

That is plain. Do not the moralists climb 
up some other way? and these thieves 
climb up some other way? therefore moral- 
ists are the thieves and robbers/' 

Well, Brother Hasty, I do not want to 
laugh at serious things, nor on serious occa- 
sions; but I cannot help remembering in 
this connection a lesson in logic I learned 
when I was a boy. It was this : " A plucked 
goose is a biped destitute of feathers. A 
man is a biped destitute of feathers. There- 
fore a man is a goose without feathers." 

But, says Brother Hasty, I always have 
heard it preached from in that way. 

Well you say, let us see for ourselves. 
To whom was Jesus speaking? 

To the Pharisees, the teachers of Israel. 

What had he been talking about? 

He had been telling them that they were 
blind, and they were not of God. 

Has he turned his attention to others ? 

No, he is still talking to them, as teach- 
ers of Israel. 

K 



146 A Key to the New Testament 



What kind of discourse is this? 
It is allegory. 

What is the story, or basis of the alle- 
gory? 

Some men, who are not the shepherds, try 
to get to the flock for their own advantage, 
not the good of the flock. They knew this, 
and they knew that the sheep would not 
come at their call, so they tried to get in 
by some other way than the proper way. 

Whom do these thieves represent? How 
will we find the meaning of the story? 

I should make this reply : We must make 
a hypothetical interpretation and see if it 
will fit the case. Suppose we say this : The 
fold represents the nation or family of Is- 
rael. In that family are some of the real 
children of God and some who are not. 
The sheep need shepherding and teaching. 
They hunger after God, but they do not 
know him very well. The porter repre- 
sents that inner sense of God which good 
men all have; a sort of instinct for the 
truth. The door is the way of approach 
which God made, the divinely chosen ideas 
of himself, the story of his love in Christ, 
which will fit the hunger of men's souls. 
Now see if this will fit the case. These 



Cross-questioning 147 



teachers come to the Israelitish nation as 
teachers. They come with a lot of cere- 
monialisms, which are stones instead of 
bread. They come, not in the way the 
prophets had foretold, with the story of a 
suffering and loving and meek Messiah, 
but with the story of a conceited and fear- 
inspiring earthly king. The porter in the 
hearts of men does not respond to that sort 
of a message. The God-loving people 
would not, could not follow such teachers. 
They had an instinctive fear to trust them. 
Does that fit the case? I think it does. 
And it fits what Jesus said afterward, " I 
am the door to the sheep. If you had 
preached me to them, the true children of 
God would have followed you. You would 
have gone in and out and found pasture 
for them." 

Take another. John 3 : 14-18. At first 
we notice that this is a simile. Then we ask 
for the point of comparison. What does 
this mean? " As Moses lifted up the ser- 
pent in the wilderness ? " We will not go to 
the sermons we have heard about this, but 
to the account itself. Let us read the story. 
All the camp of Israel was in trouble. Fiery 
serpents were abroad and the bitten people 



148 A Key to the New Testament 

were dying in great numbers. There was 
no medicine! No help! No hope! Some 
were calling on God ; others were cursing 
Moses; all were troubled. Then Moses, 
at God's command, made a brazen serpent 
and put it on a pole in the midst of the 
camp where all could see it, and said, 
" Every one that looks on this for cure 
will find it." How did Moses lift up the 
serpent? Is Jesus concerned to know what 
sort of a pole he used? Certainly not. Is 
he concerned to know what kind of a ser- 
pent he lifted up? No. Is he thinking 
mainly of what happened to the serpent? 
No; but to the people. Was the serpent 
killed ? No ; there was no serpent, but only 
the image of a serpent. It could not be 
killed, for it was not alive. We see then 
that Moses lifted up the serpent (1) as a 
God-sent deliverance; (2) as the only de- 
liverance; (3) as an effectual deliverance; 
(4) to be accepted by faith. Now come 
back to Jesus' words, " As Moses lifted up 
the serpent/' How? (1) As a God-sent 
deliverance; (2) as an only deliverance; 
(3) as an effectual deliverance; (4) to be 
accepted by faith. " So shall the Son of 
man be lifted up " into view — that is, 



Cross-questioning 1 49 



preached to all men so that they can know 
about him — that " whosoever believeth on 
him shall not perish, but may have eternal 
life." This is then a comparison of Moses 
with preachers. They are to lift up as he 
lifted up. They are to do it at God's com- 
mand, as he did his work at God's com- 
mand. And as the looking on the serpent 
gave deliverance, so believing on Jesus will 
give salvation from sin and life eternal. 

It is not then a prophecy of crucifixion, 
but a word to the preacher to lift up Christ 
and a promise to the sinner that he will be 
saved if he looks unto Christ. 



t 



XVI 



Interpretation of Books 

MY letters have been so far more es- 
pecially directed to the interpreta- 
tion of texts and limited passages. 
This does not, as you know, reach the limit 
of your field. There is a larger view to be 
taken, in which you will need to see the 
single books as single objects. They are, 
it is true, made up of a collection of single 
thoughts, but the collection is made in the 
interest of some specific purpose. One may 
go into a gallery where all the available pic- 
tures, of Dore for example, are gathered. 
Each picture has its value and a kind of 
completeness. But to know Dore as an 
artist one must see the whole collection. 
Then he sees him on all sides and has a just 
view of him. So one may see parts of 
Romans, for example, and not be without 
profit; but we need to see all the Epistle to 
get its best thought. 

Usually each book is a discussion of some 
150 



Interpretation of Books 151 

important theme or topic which came up 
in the religious life of a church, or of an 
individual. It may be that you have not 
yet met all such, but they will come up 
in due course of your life. To have studied 
these single discussions will have prepared 
you for the issue when they do come up. 
The interpreter is like a druggist who 
knows where the various kinds of remedies 
are ; when he wants to put his hand on them, 
he can do it at once. I am one of those 
old-fashioned fellows who believes, and is 
not ashamed to own it, that the Old Testa- 
ment was gathered out of a mass of litera- 
ture by men whose wisdom is justified by 
their work, and that the collection was 
properly described by Paul in 2 Tim. 3:15. 
And I also believe that the men of the 
second century gathered out of the mass of 
literature then existent the New Testament 
which, by the character of it, justly may 
be included in Paul's category for the Old 
Testament. 

How then shall we get the best inter- 
pretation of any single book? First, read 
it through several times, until you can throw 
it up in your mind in a sort of perspective, 
and see it all in a single view. This may 



152 A Key to the New Testament 



require that you carefully write out a list 
of the chapters according to their contents 
and fix that list in your mind by act of 
memory. 

Secondly, read what you can get in your 
library to put you in touch with the circum- 
stances of the writing. 

Thirdly, inquire who wrote this ? Was it 
a man who can be trusted to know what 
he was writing about? 

Fourthly, what was the reason for his 
writing? Did the ones to whom he wrote 
need his letter? and if so, why? 

Fifthly, begin to analyze the book, and 
find its framework. 

Sixthly, having found this, read it again 
and get its real force and meaning. 

For the sake of impressing this on your 
mind, will you go with me through an out- 
line study of Galatians? 

Read it through several times. Now, 
this says at the outset, " Paul, an apostle, 
not from men," etc. Bring all your mem- 
ory and knowledge of Paul into prominence. 
The great apostle, whose life in former 
days was told us in Acts from the ninth 
chapter onward — this is the man w T ho writes 
this letter to Galatians. No trifler was he. 



Interpretation of Books 153 

Not an emotionalist, but a teacher, deep 
and logical. 

Who are these people to whom he writes ? 
The Galatians. What do we know about 
them? Get the map and see where they 
lived. Now look up in your Bible dic- 
tionary, " Galatian Epistle." Then read 
Acts 13 and 14 to get an idea of the char- 
acter of the people in those churches. 

Next, what does this letter say about 
them? Chapter one, verse six, tells us that 
they had believed and under the influence of 
false teachers were turning away from their 
faith to something else. Verse 8 shows 
you that Paul was much in earnest and 
greatly disturbed about them. They seem 
to be " bewitched" (3:1). Then in 1:11 
he sets forth a certain definite proposition, 
which he at once begins to make plain 
and to prove. It is this : The gospel which 
I preached is not according to man, and is 
therefore the only true gospel. 

Now when we examine the letter from 
this on we see that all the way through 
two chapters what Paul says is in the nature 
of proof that his gospel is true. It is first 
an argument from his own experience and 
connection with it. Then in 3:1-5 he ap- 



154 A Key to the New Testament 

peals to their personal experiences. And 
then all through the rest of the chapter and 
the next one, except a parenthesis in 4: 
8-20, we find him arguing his case from the 
Old Testament Scriptures. From there on 
we find that he gave himself to exhortation 
of various sorts, up to 6:11. 

Thus we see the general outline. First, 
argument to establish the truth of the gos- 
pel as he preached it. Secondly, exhorta- 
tions based upon his argument. That is a 
good lesson in preaching. Establish the 
truth and then exhort; not exhort with- 
out truth, nor before truth. 

Now let us examine more closely his 
proof. (1) God revealed his Son in me as 
my Saviour (1 : 15, 16). (2) He commis- 
sioned me. (3) I preached it many years 
with success (18:24). (4) The leaders at 
Jerusalem approved it (2:1-6). (5) The 
apostles themselves gave me fellowship (7: 
10). (6) I rebuked and discomfited Peter 
in his dissent, showing him that the real 
transgressor of the law is he who refuses 
to let it lead him to Christ for justification 
(11 -21). (7) Your own experience con- 
firms it (3:1-5). (8) Abraham's experi- 
ence confirms it (6). (9) The promise to 



Interpretation of Books 155 

Abraham confirms it. (7-9). (10) God's 
faithfulness requires it (15-18). (11) The 
law itself declares it (19-29). (12) The 
providence of God confirms it (4:1-7; 
(parenthetical exhortation, 4:8-20). (13) 
The allegory of Sarah and Hagar teaches 
it (21-31). 

What an array of proof that is! His 
experience, their own experience! and the 
Scripture teaching in several ways. Now 
let us go back and examine the character of 
this thing which he has proven so well. 
What is it all about? What is his " Gos- 
pel " ? It is found in 3 : 26 : Ye are all sons 
of God by faith in Jesus. That is the thing 
he so earnestly defends. Some one was 
teaching those Galatians, who had once been 
happy in faith, that some ceremonies of the 
old religion were necessary. Paul says, 
Yoa are sons of God by faith in Jesus. 
That is all! Nothing more to it! No cir- 
cumcisions! No sacrifices at Jerusalem! 
No self-inflicted penances! But faith in 
Jesus! If you have that you have it all. 

Now we can see the value of his exhor- 
tation in 5:1: Stand fast in the liberty 
from these ceremonies, which Christ gives 
you. Be not entangled again in the yoke 



156 A Key to the New Testament 



of bondage. Listen to the inside voice 
which the Spirit of God uses and walk by 
it. And if you are in doubt concerning 
the path which is right, let this rule be a 
guide to you: the works of the flesh are 
these ( 5 : 19-21) . But the path of the Spirit 
is marked by these fruits (5:22-26). 

Now in chapter 6 he thinks of those 
who might be overtaken in a fault, and fail 
to walk as they ought. Toward these he 
says be not only charitable, but helpful; 
beware of all who come pressing on you any 
ceremonialism. In Christ these things do 
not count. It is the new heart of faith that 
makes you sons of God. 

What do we get then as the " word " 
from this Epistle? This: What we all need 
to make us " Sons of God/ 5 and therefore 
put us in line for receiving all those 
heavenly blessings which a heavenly 
Father's love delights to bestow is — not 
some ceremonies, or many; not to agonize 
in soul under any sort of penance; not to 
commit numerous self-denials, or semi- 
crucifixions — but to know that Christ died 
for our sins that he might bring us to God, 
and obediently submit ourselves to him. If 
we do that, we come at once into a liberty 



Interpretation of Books 157 

from fear and anxiety about the future 
which enables us to live in the joyous at- 
titude toward God of " dear children." 

That message certainly has not become 
old-fashioned. Nor has the opposition to 
it waxed old. It still combats the true 
gospel. And therefore the minister of 
Christ still has need and use for the mes- 
sage of Paul to the Galatians. 



XVII 



Interpretation and Biblical 
Theology 

IN the old-fashioned days, when the- 
ological seminaries were scarce, and 
those which were in existence were con- 
temptuously called " preacher mills/' young 
ministers were expected to make out for 
themselves what was called a " body of doc- 
trine." This was a statement of the lead- 
ing doctrines of the Christian religion, with 
the passages of Scripture from which they 
were drawn. In those days, when books 
were rare, it was a most painstaking work. 
It meant a reading of the whole Bible, 
and strenuous thinking as one went along. 
This process resulted in some curious con- 
clusions, but it gave those men a familiarity 
with the Scriptures and an independent way 
of dealing with them which this generation 
might have to its great profit. This " body 
of doctrine " is now called by the more pre- 
tentious name of biblical theology. It is a 

158 



Interpretation and Theology 159 

word about this important subject which I 
wish to write in this chapter. 

I suppose there are those who, at first 
thought, may ask, " Why call it biblical 
theology? Is not all theology biblical? 
And if it is not biblical, is it theology at 
all ? " Paul said, in Romans, " The invisi- 
ble things of God are clearly seen in the 
things that are made, even his eternal power 
and Godhead." If that is true, then there 
is theology where there is no Bible. It is 
natural theology. And so the men who 
make names for us have divided the sub- 
ject of theology into subdivisions, and 
named them: natural theology, which can 
be learned from nature without any Bible ; 
biblical theology, which is to be learned 
from the Bible; and systematic theology, 
which is the combination of all kinds of 
theology into one system. The first and 
vital thing in forming biblical theology is 
correct interpretation of the various books 
which compose the Bible. Hence the fitness 
of my alluding to the matter here. 

You will recall that, as you have read the 
various books of the Bible at one time and 
another, you have noticed a smaller and less 
loving conception of God in some books 



1 60 A Key to the New Testament 

than in others. There is a much more clear 
idea of our relations to all men in the 
New Testament than in the Old Testament. 
In the Old Testament the motives and the 
hopes of religious men are connected more 
with this world and its comforts than with 
the next w T orld; while in the New Testa- 
ment the reverse is true. All this shows 
that it would not be wise to take any single 
part of the Bible as the ultimate standard 
of our theology. It would be at best but 
fragmentary. We must take the matured 
experience, and, so far as it has been given, 
the matured revelation into our material 
for the construction of our " body of doc- 
trine." You will see at once then that we 
need to begin at the earliest of the writ- 
ings and move on through the ages, and 
trace the development of religious ideas. 
For myself (although I am aware that 
some do not agree with me in doing so), I 
assume that the Bible never gives contra- 
dictory ideas of God or of theology. There 
are very incomplete views given. Men had 
one-sided and narrow conceptions. But the 
true ideas were always present in any teach- 
ing which had divine sanction. One writer 
of more enlightenment, or of later date, 



Interpretation and Theology 161 

may give views beyond those which another 
writer gives. 

I am not writing you a letter on biblical 
theology, but only some things to be taken 
into account in the interpretation of Scrip- 
ture when you are making your biblical 
theology. These are some of the things 
to be remembered : 

The Scriptures are the expressions of the 
thoughts and experiences of men in the 
age when they were written. You would 
not expect to find, and you do not find, 
men in the book of Job saying anything 
about the comfortable hope of the resur- 
rection. They knew nothing about it, and 
therefore they said nothing about it. And 
if you were making your theology from 
Job it would not contain a hint that such 
a hope can be cherished. Water cannot 
rise higher than its source. The whole is 
not greater than the sum of all its parts. 
Your theology cannot contain more than 
the sources from which you get it. What 
I have said about the matter of resurrec- 
tion is equally true about the character of 
God. You will not expect to find men in 
the Psalms speaking about God as those who 
knew God in Paul's time. They did not 

L 



1 62 A Key to the New Testament 

misconceive him, but they only partially 
conceived him. God was not different, but 
the knowledge of him was less full. 

Their knowledge of God was obtained, in 
large measure at least, through their edu- 
cation. And their education came from 
their surroundings, plus some element of 
revelation. This means, of course, that 
their ideas of God and of religion were 
more or less the ideas of their age. You 
will not then be surprised to find the older 
writers speaking as we would not speak. 
If God was spoken of as King and Lord, 
it must be understood that they thought 
of him as they thought of kings and lords, 
and not as we think of kings and lords. To 
us Americans a king is a nuisance. Mr. 
Carnegie said, " Every royal family is an 
insult to every other family." But the Is- 
raelites did not think of their Messiah as 
a nuisance, nor the Davidic family as an 
insult to every other family. 

It is necessary therefore to take large 
circles of observation in order to get the 
atmosphere of the times. You will do 
it best by reading whole books of the Bible 
at a time, and those books which were 
written about the same time. Read them 



Interpretation and Theology 163 

not to get any religious doctrines, but to get 
the true social and religious perspective of 
each book. Above all, avoid getting les- 
sons or sermons from them at such times. 

Compare the perspective of one book with 
that of another, and note what increment 
of progress has appeared, and how it came 
about. This is one of the most helpful 
of exercises. It may also be profitably 
coupled with a study of the religions of the 
surrounding nations at that time. You will 
perhaps find many things in common in 
the lower spheres of all religions, but you 
will be greatly impressed with the large 
margin of spiritual superiority which the 
Bible ideas have when compared with other 
national religions. 

Do not attempt to make any book tell 
more than it knows, nor be disappointed 
when you do not find all you w r ant in it. 
Each book has its purpose. It is a good 
reliable writing on that purpose. It con- 
tributes a satisfactory element on its own 
theme. For example : the letter to the Gala- 
tians does not give you anything about the 
resurrection, nor the gifts of the Spirit, nor 
the unity of the church. But if you want 
to get the truth about justification by faith 



1 64 A Key to the New Testament 

you will not be disappointed in that book. 

The latest book is not always the highest 
in its teaching. The book of Acts is later 
than Paul's letters, but his letters are in ad- 
vance of the teaching recorded in Acts. 
The maturer doctrine is the one that reaches 
the larger circle, and is the most spiritual. 

When you have traced the teaching of 
the Bible in this way you will have formed 
in your mind a conception of the Christian 
religion which will be large, clear, sound, 
and convincing. You will have so traversed 
the ground that you will fear no by-paths 
of error and no upsetting of your conclu- 
sions. With these methods you can formu- 
late your own doctrines with confidence. 
You can test the teachings of others with 
an independent judgment. You can meet 
your most intelligent hearers with an open 
face and an honest eye after every ser- 
mon or class. 



XVIII 



The Ultimate Truth 

I HAVE written you now all these let- 
ters, in which I have traveled rapidly 
over a broad field. At the very best 
you have only caught some ideas of how to 
discover the truth that the Scripture con- 
tains. 

But there is now a matter left until this 
laie date of more importance than all else, 
and that is this: Your search must be for 
Christian truth. You might use all these 
suggestions and yet get not much but his- 
tory or ethics. For example, a man might 
study the book of Jonah and be very learned 
about it, and not see that its great aim is 
not to show the sin of refusing to go where 
God sends you, nor the providences by 
which God brings his servants to their 
duties, but God's great mercy to a wicked 
nation. 

Or one might study Romans and well 
understand Paul's argument to refute the 

165 



1 66 A Key to the New Testament 

Jewish ideas, but fail utterly to be moved 
by the teaching of God's graciousness to- 
ward men. 

How to see these living truths, which 
are the core of all Scripture — what can I 
write you about that? Before that task 
I am bewildered. I will not attempt it. I 
can only point to a few things which I 
have found helpful to myself ; things which 
have at various times been the means of 
new visions of truth. 

Remember that the Bible, wonderful 
book that it is ; varied as it is ; composed 
along through centuries by various men, 
has a remarkable unity of aim. All these 
various books are, one might say, con- 
sciously aiming to furnish us guidance and 
stimulus toward a godly life. No man 
who has sense enough to read it can fail 
to see that every writer was trying in his 
own best way to contribute toward that end. 
You may think they blundered, but you can- 
not think they did not try to lead men to 
godly lives. Therefore no book of the 
Bible has been studied aright until it has 
been searched to find what it sought to con- 
tribute toward that end. 

Remember that a knowledge of God's 



The Ultimate Truth 1 67 



character is fundamental to a godly life, 
and therefore search the books for what 
they reveal of him. It is a precious find 
when you get a fuller view of God. 

Remember that Christ Jesus is the one 
who came into the world to save sinners. 
He is the Saviour. 

All the light of sacred story 
Gathers round his head sublime. 

Seek to find what light the books throw 
on him, try to see him as he is; that is the 
secret of life. 

See 2 Cor. 3 : 12-18 ; 1 John 3 : 2, 3 ; John 
17:3; John 3: 14-19. 

Remember that he tells us the way of 
salvation. And so among your inquiries 
ask what light his word gives on that ques- 
tion. This will give value to the doctrinal 
and practical teachings. 

Remember that the greater part of our 
religious need is not light nor censure, but 
stimulus. We all know better than we do. 
What we want is some spiritual impulse, 
or courage. The Scriptures furnish that in 
abundance. Read the daily papers and 
many of the reported sermons and see 
whether, admitting that all their analyses of 



1 68 A Key to the New Testament 



conduct and rebukes of human meanness 
are just, they prompt you to be a better 
man ? Or do they simply convince you that 
this is a wicked world anyway ? Then read 
a few chapters in a Gospel or an Epistle, 
and see if that makes you feel as the paper 
did. What makes the difference? The 
Gospel has hope for you; it sees in you 
things that are better, and stimulates you. 
Now, when you study a passage remember 
that the book was written to save and not 
condemn. Its crystals of goodness, its gold 
in the ore, are in the thoughts that kindle 
hope. Search until you find them. 

Remember that you can use only one 
truth at a time. Dwell on one precious 
truth until it fills you, then it will fill others. 
Our age is one that requires concentration 
of thought and effort on single things to 
make exceptional success. Separate with 
care and intelligence the precious gems of 
truth, and think of them until to you they 
glow like diamonds; and then preach and 
teach them with utter abandonment. They 
will not fail. 



XIX 



Test of the Work 

IN our far-off clays of the public school 
one of the requirements in arithmetic 
was to " prove the work." No answers 
were given us. We must know that we 
were right. Something of that sort is 
needed in our interpretation of Scripture. 
Not that we can have the mathematical cer- 
tainty which we have in arithmetic (though 
some one did say of Doctor Gordon's work 
that it was " aerial but mathematically exact 
exegesis 7 '); but such a moral and intel- 
lectual certainty that we can teach it with a 
clear conscience. By what process then 
can we test our conclusions? 

Compare your conclusions with other 
men's conclusions who have studied the 
same passage. You need have no hesitancy 
about this on the ground of fear lest you be 
only a parrot, saying other men's words 
after them. It was said by the wise man, 
" There is no new thing under the sun " 

169 



1 70 A Key to the New Testament 

(Eccl. 1:9). This age is one that brings 
the treasures of the world's thought to 
our libraries. The wise and useful man is 
he who utilizes the material at his hand, 
after he has studied the matter. Doctors, 
lawyers, teachers, statesmen use the product 
of other men's labors. It will not weaken 
your mind to consult others, if you will 
follow their processes of thought. If you 
simply borrow their conclusions you will 
dwarf your mind. 

Compare your conclusions with the teach- 
ing of other passages on the same subject. 
You may safely assume that there is enough 
unity of thought in Scripture to secure har- 
mony of teaching. If you find in Matthew 
an idea of righteousness that seems to differ 
from Paul's idea in Romans, a comparison 
will show you that the view in Matthew 
is only partial, and in Paul partial. Both 
must be combined. 

In this kind of test great care will be 
needed lest the mere likeness of sound 
or expression be taken for likeness of 
thought. Besides that you will need to 
remember that the mere number of parallel 
passages is not always of importance. It 
is their weight. A man once said to me 



Test of the Work 



171 



that he had concluded from the facts men- 
tioned in the Scriptures that no man was 
ever converted unless some one had per- 
sonally made him a subject of prayer. 
There are, no doubt, many things to lead 
toward that conclusion, but the cases of the 
eunuch, and Cornelius, and Matthew, and 
Zaccheus, would seem to make that conclu- 
sion uncertain. 

There are passages which, considered 
alone, seem to teach the power lessness of 
any man to turn to Christ. But compared 
with other passages, which seem to teach 
the opposite, we find the conclusion in 
Paul's words, " Work out your own salva- 
tion with fear and trembling, for it is God 
which worketh in you, both to will and to 
do of his good pleasure" (Phil. 2: 12). 

Compare your conclusion with a well- 
established system of doctrine. At first 
thought this, which the older writers call 
the " analogy of the faith," seems to pre- 
clude any right to a new idea. The " doc- 
trine " seems to be the standard, and noth- 
ing must be allowed which differs. I do not 
mean it in that sense; but in this sense: 
systems of doctrine are the laboriously 
wrought-out results of the best thinking of 



172 A Key to the New Testament 

the most godly men of former generations. 
They were not infallible, but they have a 
better claim on infallibility taken as a group 
than you or I have when taken alone. 
Hesitancy to differ from such conclusions is 
only commonplace prudence, and common 
respect for others. If truth compels differ- 
ence we must differ — fearlessly. The un- 
fortunate divisions of the church in our 
day into small sects is due to the unrebuked 
conceit of individuals who, having caught 
sight of a little gleam of truth new to 
them, immediately conclude they have dis- 
covered a new ocean, and they set about 
building a ship and begin to engage from 
the landlubbers in theology a crew to sail 
it. But behold their ocean was only a little 
bay, long ago charted as shallow and dan- 
gerous. Some one finds Peter's wife's 
mother cured of fever; then he reads that 
some one had a gift of healing; and the 
One Hundred and Third Psalm sings about 
" healing ail our diseases," and so the un- 
true doctrine is formulated : " All sickness is 
Satan's work, and the man who has faith 
need not be sick." There are many men of 
excellent quality, strong in some directions, 
whose usefulness has been lessened by their 



Test of the Work 



173 



failure to compare their views of texts 
with doctrinal writings. It is here that 
church history has its value. 

But while I say this do not understand 
me to say that you should be bound by any 
system of man-made doctrines. Advances 
in knowledge are always made by men who 
dare to break with tradition. Luther dared 
to read for himself, and the German Refor- 
mation followed. Knox and his fellows up- 
lifted Scotland. Carey dared the lion of 
orthodoxy in his lair, and swung open the 
door of salvation to the heathen. Roger 
Williams broke the bond of subserviency 
to the State which an Episcopal king had 
made out of the Episcopal translation of a 
few texts. No ! Do not fear to differ, but 
fear to differ without good reason. 

Compare your interpretations when you 
can with the experience of Christian men. 
The Bible is a book aiming to produce 
Christian experience. No doctrine which 
cannot be verified in experience is impor- 
tant, even if it is true. It may be, as the 
old hymn has it, that in the books of heaven 

Every Christian's form and size 
Is drawn with angelic pen. 



1 74 A Key to the New Testament 



But that has no value to us. Unless you 
have found an idea or a truth in a text 
which helps toward producing a Christian 
life, it is not worth digging out. There- 
fore seek to become familiar with the re- 
ligious experiences of others. Much of 
this can come from reading biographies of 
Christian men. But the greater source is 
conversation with Christian people about 
their experiences. You will often find that 
the experience of elderly Christians has 
given them an insight to Scriptures which is 
clear and deep. Such people are the best 
sort of exegetes for some parts of the 
Bible. Keep in touch with the old Bible- 
reading saints. Do with them as Jesus did 
with the " doctors " in the temple, hearing 
them and asking them questions (Luke 2: 
46). Why should experience be discounted 
in wisdom's market? 

Test your thoughts by your own experi- 
ence. Jesus said, " We speak that we do 
know, and testify that we have seen." 
Bible teaching is given, as I have already 
said, to be experienced. No man has ex- 
hausted the purpose or the teaching of the 
book until its precious promises and its 
holy ideals have been realized in himself. 



Test of the Work 1 75 



And our real understanding of the Scrip- 
tures is measured by our own experiences. 
How can a man learn " forgiveness " from 
a dictionary? He might as well expect to 
satisfy hunger by reading the chemical anal- 
ysis of bread, or thirst by the analysis of 
water. One must forgive to know for- 
giveness. One must have felt guilty to 
know sin. He must have been through Gal. 
5 : 22-25 to know its meaning. 

This seems a hard test. It affects seri- 
ously the value of such theological stocks as 
have been heavily watered with mere learn- 
ing. But the resultant certainty is a com- 
pensation for the shrinkage. A friend of 
mine once said he did not think he knew a 
text until he had practised it. I think the 
final test of our interpretations is reducing 
them to practice. May we all pass that 
examination. 



Index 



Agassiz, quoted, 26. 
Allegory, Chapter IX. 
Atonement, day of, 112. 

Bible: contents of, 21, 40; human form of, 38; transla- 
tion of, 47; contains poems, 41; imperfections of, 47; 
difference of, from other reading, 167. 

Biblical theology, 159. 

English language: changed, 48; old meanings of, 50; 

larger meanings of, 54. 
Exegesis, definition of, 16. 
Exhortation, argument of, Chapter XIII. 
Figures of speech, 71; compared, 72; discussed, 72, 81-86. 
Figurative language, value of, 85-90. 
Forgiveness and grace compared, 32. 
Grammar, 60. 
Hebrews, outline of, 115. 
Hermeneutics, meaning of, 9. 
Ideals, 29. 

Interpretation: meaning of, 10; need for, 18; careless, 

35; of books, 150;^ rules for, 120. 
Imagination to be cultivated, 137. 
Joys of Christian life, 31. 

Metaphors: not sacred, 39, 72; basis of, 75; discussed, 77. 

Miracles, definition of, 15, 123, 124. 

Melchizedek, 113. 

Numbers, symbolism of, 107. 

Parables: referred to, 14; of illustration and argument, 
95; not predictive, 99; classified, 101; lessons of, 103; 
to conceal truth, 100. 

Predestination discussed, 141. 

Prodigal son, 97. 

Promises, 62. 

Prophets, Major and Minor, 42. 
Reason appealed to, 65. 

Syllogism: definition of, 116; illustrated, 1 17-120. 

Symbols, definition of, 15. 

Synoptic Gospels. 44. 

Tabernacle, 105. 

Tests of the work, 169. 

Types: definition of, 15, 111; care in interpretation of, 
no. 

Texts discussed: Matt. 24 : 29-31, 84; Luke 15, 97; John 
2, 126; 3 : 14, 147; 10 : 1-6, 146; Rom. 5 : 12-14, 121; 
5 : 15, 143; 12 : 1, 130; 14 : 13; 15 : 30; 15 : V W 
2 Cor. 3 : 18, 28; Gal., 154; Eph. 1 : 18, 33; 2 Thess. 
2 : 1-12, 



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